NASA's SPHEREx Mission

First Stage Fueling Started

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. Photo credit: NASA+

Moments ago, mission teams polled “go” to begin fueling the SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage booster.

We’re now just under 45 minutes from launch, and the rocket is being loaded with RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene). The rocket’s first stage also is being fueled with liquid oxygen, and a few minutes from now, fueling will begin for the second stage.

NASA Science missions previously launched by SpaceX include Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), Psyche, SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem), GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites U), Europa Clipper, Jason 3, and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The company is also scheduled this year to launch TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites), IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On L1), Sentinel 6B, and TSIS-2 (Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor -2), and NASA’s upcoming infrared space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, by May 2027.

Meet the Spacecraft: SPHEREx

Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will create a map of the cosmos like no other. Using a technique called spectroscopy to image the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, SPHEREx will gather information about the composition of and distance to millions of galaxies and stars. With this map, scientists will study what happened in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, how galaxies formed and evolved, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. — Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will create a map of the cosmos like no other. Using a technique called spectroscopy to image the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, SPHEREx will gather information about the composition of and distance to millions of galaxies and stars. Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory, the size of a compact car, utilizes a wide-field aluminum telescope.

One of SPHEREx’s most striking features — its series of three nested conical photon shields — helps it stay cold and see faint objects. The mission’s infrared telescope and detectors need to operate at around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit, about minus 210 degrees Celsius, partly to prevent them from generating their own infrared glow, which might overwhelm the faint light from cosmic sources.

The entirely passive cooling system, using no electricity or coolants during normal operations, is indicative of SPHEREx’s simple and robust design, which maximizes efficiency.

The design of SPHEREx also contains several features proven effective on previous missions, including its 7.9-inch (20-centimeter) aluminum telescope with a 3.5° x 11° wide field of view. The observatory will sweep across the sky, taking about 600 exposures each day that can be combined to create an all-sky mosaic. Every section of the sky will be imaged 102 times, each time using a different color filter that blocks all wavelengths except one. Combining those images, scientists can see the total emission from that section of the sky or look at an individual wavelength. This method was demonstrated by NASA’s New Horizons to obtain spectral images of Jupiter and Pluto.

NASA Begins Live Broadcast of SPHEREx, PUNCH Missions

NASA just began its live broadcast coverage of tonight’s launch of the agency’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions.

Watch the broadcast airing live on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

The SPHEREx mission will focus on three key science goals: Create a 3D map of hundreds of millions of galaxies to study inflation, which is the rapid expansion of the universe by a trillion-trillion-fold in less than a second after the big bang. Measure the total collective glow of galaxies near and far, including the light from sources that may be hidden or haven’t been individually observed, such as faint or distant galaxies or populations of stars that have been pushed to peripheries of galaxies. Search the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, carbon dioxide, and other essential ingredients for life, and measure their abundance and availability for newly forming planets.

For PUNCH, the main science goal is to determine the physical processes at different scales that unify the solar corona with the rest of the solar system environment (the heliosphere). By understanding how coronal structures become the ambient solar wind scientists will better understand the evolution of transient structures, such as coronal mass ejections, in the young solar wind.

You also can keep following the missions on the launch blog, which originates from the NASA News Center at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

There’s more to come, so stay with us.

Weather Looks Favorable for Launch of SPHEREx, PUNCH Missions

Weather officials with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 30 are predicting over a 90% chance of favorable weather conditions for tonight’s launch.

NASA is targeting 8:10 p.m. PDT (11:10 p.m. EDT) for launch of the SPHEREx and PUNCH missions atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

NASA’s PUNCH Mission

Artist's concept of the PUNCH satellites in orbit. — Artist’s concept of the PUNCH satellites in orbit. Photo credit: NASA

Launching as a rideshare with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission is a constellation of four small satellites that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, to learn how the mass and energy there become the solar wind.

The four PUNCH spacecraft will be in a polar (Sun-synchronous) low Earth orbit in a dawn/dusk alignment and spread out around Earth along the day-night line. This means the satellites will be near the terminator line, that separates day from night on Earth. This enables each spacecraft to nearly always be in sunlight and the spacecraft constellation will have a clear view in all directions around the Sun.

The two-year PUNCH mission will build upon and contribute to NASA’s Heliophysics Program, studying the Sun and its influence throughout the solar system including our home on Earth. The main science goal of PUNCH is to determine the physical processes that unify the solar corona with the rest of the solar system environment, or heliosphere, by understanding how coronal structures become the solar wind and understanding the evolution of transient structures, such as coronal mass ejections, in the young solar wind.

By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.

The PUNCH satellites have more sensitive cameras and a wider field of view than previous instruments focused on the Sun’s outer atmosphere and will provide greater detail and brand-new 3D measurements of this region. The images gathered will provide unprecedented quality understanding of what occurs in this region of space near out home.

The PUNCH mission will provide unprecedented data on the solar wind and space weather events as they leave the Sun and cross the solar system, which can often have an enormous impact on human society and technology, from sparking and intensifying auroras to interfering with satellites or triggering power outages. The measurements from PUNCH will provide scientists with new information about how these potentially disruptive events form and evolve, which could lead to more accurate predictions about the arrival and impact of space weather events at Earth and the impact on humanity’s robotic explorers in space. The data also will be available to the public at the same time it is available to the science team, published through the Solar Data Analysis Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The PUNCH mission is led by Southwest Research Institute’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division located in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is a NASA Small Explorers mission managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA Goddard for the NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

For more information about either mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/punch/

NASA’s SPHEREx Mission

Artist's concept of the SPHEREx observatory in orbit. — Artist’s concept of the SPHEREx observatory in orbit. Credit: NASA

Launching with NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) will collect data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe.

Over a two-year planned mission, the SPHEREx telescope will map the entire sky four times in near-infrared light which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful tool for answering cosmic questions. Using a tool called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will observe the sky in 102 infrared wavelengths, or colors — more than any other all-sky survey. Spectroscopy is used by scientists to measure the composition of cosmic objects and their distance.

With this colorful all-sky view, SPHEREx will shed new light on a cosmic phenomenon called inflation that caused the universe to expand a trillion-trillion-fold in size in the first fraction of a second after the big bang; measure the collective glow created by galaxies near and far, including hidden galaxies that have not been individually observed by other observatories; and survey the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, carbon dioxide, and other essential ingredients for life.  

SPHEREx’s ability to scan large sections of the sky quickly and gather data on millions of objects complements the work of more targeted telescopes, like NASA’s Hubble and James Webb. The data from SPHEREx will be freely available to scientists around the world, providing a new encyclopedia of information about hundreds of millions of cosmic objects.

As a NASA Astrophysics mission, the agency selected SPHEREx as a Medium-Class Explorers mission in February 2019 to address the agency’s three core astrophysics goals: probe the origin and destiny of the universe, explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life, and explore the origin and evolution of galaxies.

The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, for NASA’s Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech in Pasadena, which also developed the payload in collaboration with JPL. BAE Systems supplied the spacecraft. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) is an instrument and science partner for the mission. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. In addition to scientists from Caltech, JPL, and KASI, the scientific analysis will include scientists from numerous institutions.

For more information about SPHEREx, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/spherex/ 

Key Milestones for Tonight’s Launch

We’re about 90 minutes away from tonight’s launch of NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Liftoff is targeted for 11:10 p.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. PDT).

Here’s a closer look at some of tonight’s important countdown and ascent milestones (all times are approximate):

COUNTDOWN:
Hr/Min/Sec   Event
– 00:38:00 SpaceX launch director verifies go for propellant load
– 00:35:00 RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading begins
– 00:35:00 First stage liquid oxygen (LOX) loading begins
– 00:16:00 Second stage LOX loading begins
– 00:07:00 Falcon 9 begins engine chill prior to launch
– 00:01:00 Command flight computer to begin final prelaunch checks
– 00:01:00 Propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins
– 00:00:45 SpaceX launch director verifies go for launch
– 00:00:03 Engine controller commands engine ignition sequence to start

LAUNCH, LANDING, AND SPACECRAFT DEPLOYMENT:
Hr/Min/Sec Event
00:00:00 Falcon 9 liftoff
00:01:08 Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)
00:02:16 First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
00:02:20 First and second stages separate
00:02:28 Second stage engine starts (SES-1)
00:02:33 Boostback burn starts
00:03:00 Fairing separation
00:03:28 Boostback burn ends
00:07:54 First stage landing
00:08:16 Second stage engine cutoff (SECO-1)
00:39:28 Second stage engine starts (SES-2)
00:40:10 Second stage engine cutoff (SECO-2)
00:41:56 SPHEREx separation
00:52:16 First set of PUNCH satellites separate
00:53:07 Second set of PUNCH satellites separate

NASA’s live launch broadcast will begin at 10:15 p.m. EDT (7:15 p.m. PDT) and will air live on NASA+ and the agency’s website.

Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. You can also continue following along right here on the blog as we take you through the entire flight profile.

NASA Begins Live Coverage of SPHEREx, PUNCH Missions

Welcome to tonight’s live launch coverage of NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions!

NASA and SpaceX teams met today and made the decision to proceed with tonight’s launch attempt of the Agency’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions. The SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled to liftoff at 8:10 p.m. PDT (11:10 p.m. EDT).

The SPHEREx mission will search for key ingredients for life in our galaxy and improve our understanding of how the universe evolved, while PUNCH will reveal how the Sun’s corona gives rise to the solar wind and space weather that surround our home planet.

We’re just about three hours away from launch of these two NASA science missions aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Watch live coverage of today’s launch activities on NASA+, starting at 10:15 p.m. EDT (7:15 p.m. PDT). Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

You can also continue following along right here on the blog as we take you through the entire flight profile for the missions. Today’s launch blog comes to you from the NASA News Center at NASA Kennedy.

Join the conversation, follow the launch, and get mission updates from these accounts:

X: @NASA, @NASAJPL, @NASAUniverse, @NASASun, @NASAKennedy, @NASA_LSP 
Facebook: NASA, NASA’s JPL, NASA Universe, NASASunScience, NASA’s Launch Services Program
Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAJPL, @NASAUniverse

Visit the NASA website for more information about SPHEREx and PUNCH.

NASA’s SPHEREx, PUNCH Launch Scrubs Due to Weather, Data-Flow Issue

NASA and SpaceX are standing down from today’s launch attempt of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the agency’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions due to weather at the launch site and a SPHEREx ground data-flow issue. The next launch attempt is Tuesday, March 11 with liftoff targeted for 11:10 p.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. PDT) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Launch weather for Tuesday, March 11, is at 40% probability of violation with thick clouds continued in the forecast. Monitor the blog for further launch updates.

NASA Begins Live Broadcast of SPHEREx, PUNCH Missions

NASA just ramped up its coverage of today’s launch of NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions, as the live broadcast with commentary has now begun.

Watch the broadcast airing live on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

You also can keep following the missions on the launch blog, which originates from the NASA News Center at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

There’s more to come, so stay with us.