NASA launches missions to study universe's beginning and Sun's mysteries
What's the story
After a series of delays, NASA has successfully launched two groundbreaking missions from California.
The primary payload is SPHEREx, a space telescope that will capture images of the entire sky in more than 100 colors invisible to the human eye.
The $488 million SPHEREx mission also seeks to uncover how galaxies evolved over billions of years.
Accompanying this mission is PUNCH, a collection of four satellites that will study the Sun's outer atmosphere and solar wind.
Orbital journey
SPHEREx and PUNCH enter sun-synchronous orbit
Almost 42 minutes after launch, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) detached from the rocket's upper stage.
The four PUNCH satellites were released in pairs roughly 10 minutes later.
Both missions are now waiting for signals from their respective spacecraft, which are currently orbiting approximately 644km above Earth's terminator line—the dynamic boundary between day and night.
This orbit is called sun-synchronous as it keeps a constant position with respect to our Sun.
Mission objectives
SPHEREx will map cosmos in 102 infrared colors
SPHEREx will map the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors for the first time in humanity's history.
Over two years, it 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," as per NASA.
SPHEREx will also "search the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, carbon dioxide, and other essential ingredients for life."
Solar exploration
PUNCH's mission: Unraveling solar mysteries
PUNCH, or Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, will decode how the sun's outer atmosphere or corona turns into solar wind.
The mission includes four small satellites; three are wide-field imagers and one is a narrow-field imager.
The narrow-field imager will simulate a total solar eclipse, while the wide-field imagers will use polarimetry to create detailed 3D maps of features seen throughout the Sun's corona and inner solar system.