VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. – SpaceX has designated a new launch time for NASA's SPHEREx Observatory and PUNCH satellites for Monday, March 10 at 8:10 p.m.
A backup launch window has been announced for the next day, Tuesday, March 11, at the same time shared SpaceX in a press release Monday.
About eight minutes after liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Falcon 9 first-stage booster will return to land at the military base and residents are warned they may hear a sonic boom detailed SpaceX.
A live webcast of the launch will go live about an hour before liftoff and can be watched here.
The two-year Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer mission -or SPHEREx- will, like the name states, study the structure of the universe and search for the molecules that are the basis of life as we know it explained NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Artist's conceptualization of SPHEREx in orbit around Earth courtesy of NASA/JPL-CaltechThe SPHEREx mission will use images collected in the infrared range using a technique called spectroscopy to split light into 102 colors, or different wavelengths like a prism, much more than what the human eye can see.
Artist concept of the spectroscopy technique by SPHEREx courtesy of NASA/JPL-CaltechThose additional wavelengths of light will allow the SPHEREx mission to detect chemical compounds and molecules that have unique color signatures that they absorb and emit.
Another key aspect of the SPHEREx mission is that it will determine the distance of galaxies to create a three-dimensional map like never before.
Image captured by the Hubble telescope showing thousands of galaxies that the human eye can't see courtesy of NASA/ESA/UC Santa Cruz/Leiden University/HUDF09According to NASA, mapping in the infrared spectrum will create a new encyclopedia about hundreds of millions of celestial objects -such as stars, galaxies, and asteroids-that have not been observed using the spectroscopy technique before and researchers from around the globe will be able to access the new observations from anywhere on Earth.
Another mission will also be launched on the Falcon 9 booster.
The PUNCH -or Polarmeter to Unify the Corona and Helioshpere- mission will use a constellation of four small satellites to make three-dimensional observations of the entire inner heliosphere of the sun from low-Earth orbit to learn more about how the sun's corona becomes the ejected charged particles we call solar winds.
This will be the third flight for the Falcon 9 assigned to this mission which previously launched NROL-126 and Transporter-12 missions.
Falcon 9 launch of SPHEREx and PUNCH missions rescheduled to Monday evening News Channel 3-12.
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