NASA's SPHEREx & PUNCH Astronomy Missions: Trajectory Explainer

NASA's SPHEREx & PUNCH Astronomy Missions: Trajectory Explainer

NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory, the size of a compact car, utilizes a wide-field aluminum telescope. NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) is made up of four 140-pound small satellites, each about 1 x 2 x 3 feet in size. It will be synchronized to serve as a single “virtual instrument” that spans the whole PUNCH constellation.

SPHEREx is NASA’s newest space telescope that “will observe hundreds of millions of galaxies and other objects during its two-year mission, mapping the cosmos in wavelengths invisible to the human eye”.

Learn more about the SPHEREx Mission:

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

PUNCH is a “constellation of four small satellites in a polar (Sun-synchronous) low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the entire inner heliosphere to learn how the Sun's corona becomes the solar wind”.

Learn more about the PUNCH Mission:

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

NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP)
https://www.nasa.gov/kennedy/launch-services-program/

Video Credit: NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
Duration: 3 minutes
Release Date: March 12, 2025

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