The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It carried NASA's SPHEREx Infrared Observatory and the PUNCH Solar Complex, consisting of four separate instruments, into space. At the time of writing, the launch is considered successful. Both observatories will begin scientific work in about three months and after a major equipment check.
The launch of these missions has been postponed five times, both due to the fires in California and bad weather in the launch area in February. The payload cannot be risked: the cost of the SPHEREx observatory is $488 million, and PUNCH is $165 million. The total weight of the cargo is 756 kg. The launches were combined to reduce the final cost of sending the spacecraft into orbit.
The SPHEREx Observatory and the PUNCH complex will be placed in polar sun-synchronous orbits. The difference is that SPHEREx will always be in the Earth's shadow, while PUNCH will always be turned towards the Sun. Scientific work on each platform should last at least two years with the possibility of extension.
The SPHEREx Observatory will conduct the first complete survey of the sky in 102 "colors" of the infrared spectrum. It is known that the wavelength of light stretches as it travels through the Universe, passing into the red and infrared regions, after which it becomes invisible to the human eye. It is this region of the spectrum that carries information about the dawn of the Universe. The infrared telescope SPHEREx will collect data from the era of reionization, when the first stars began to shine, and will also peer through veils of dust and gas to look for traces of ice.
Over the course of two years, SPHEREx is expected to collect data on more than 450 million galaxies and over 100 million stars in the Milky Way. The telescope will operate in approximately the same range as the James Webb, but with much wider coverage. Thanks to its wide-angle optics, the observatory will carry out the first complete survey of the sky in just the first six months of observations. This will be a colossal amount of data.
The PUNCH satellite complex is designed for three-dimensional observation of processes in the solar corona and the upper layers of the solar atmosphere. One of the spacecraft is equipped with a narrow-beam telescope with a coronagraph for studying the solar corona, and the other three have wide-angle polarimetry sensors. Observation of the polarization of solar radiation allows us to recreate the processes occurring in the upper layers of the solar atmosphere and its corona.
Data from all four PUNCH devices will allow us to reproduce solar dynamics to the fullest extent possible. This is necessary to study the mechanisms of solar wind formation and ultimately to develop long-term space weather forecasts. Solar wind and plasma emissions can affect spacecraft electronics and ground infrastructure. In addition, they affect the climate and biological processes on Earth, including human health. Studying the Sun is especially important because scientists still do not fully understand the physics of its processes.