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+
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.
