Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

SpaceX will launch NASA’s SPHEREx astrophysics survey mission

Georgina Torbet
By
NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is targeted to launch in 2024. SPHEREx will help astronomers understand both how our universe evolved and how common are the ingredients for life in our galaxy’s planetary systems. Caltech

Aiming for a 2024 launch, NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is an astrophysics survey that will be performed from an orbital observatory. It aims to take a survey of the sky in the near-infrared wavelength, in order to uncover clues about the beginning of the universe and how galaxies developed over time.

Now, NASA has announced that it selected SpaceX to launch the SPHEREx mission, as part of a total cost of $99.8 million for the launch and other related costs. The plan for the launch is to use a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s reusable workhorse rocket which has been used to launch everything from resupply missions to the International Space Station to the first crewed test flight and subsequent first operational flight of the Crew Dragon capsule for carrying astronauts.

The plan is to launch SPHEREx from Space Launch Complex-4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in June 2024.

Related

NASA selected the SPHEREx mission for funding and launch in February 2019, with NASA officials describing it at the time as providing ” a treasure trove of unique data for astronomers.”

By surveying the sky in the near-infrared, SPHEREx will collect data on over 300 million galaxies as well as the more than 100 million stars in our galaxy. By mapping the entire sky several times over, it will collect data using a variety of filters to pick up different wavelengths. The result should help astronomers understand deep questions about how the universe formed.

NASA says the mission will also be searching for water and organic molecules in star-forming regions, plus searching out disks of matter which could form into planets.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Stars sparkle in Orion Nebula in this week’s gorgeous Hubble image
The bright variable star V 372 Orionis takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which has also captured a smaller companion star in the upper left of this image. Both stars lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1,450 light-years from Earth.
How to watch SpaceX’s Starlink launch tomorrow
starlink mega constellation satellite network spacex mission 3
James Webb peers into icy cloud to learn about exoplanet formation
This image by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light years away. The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, centre) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft to visit a bonus asteroid later this year
Illustration of Lucy passing by an asteroid.
How to watch the conjunction of Venus and Saturn online today
The planet Venus.
There’s an asteroid surprise in this week’s Hubble image
A host of astronomical objects throng this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Background galaxies ranging from stately spirals to fuzzy ellipticals are strewn across the image, and bright foreground stars much closer to home are also present, surrounded by diffraction spikes. In the centre of the image, the vague shape of the small galaxy UGC 7983 appears as a hazy cloud of light. UGC 7983 is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, and is a dwarf irregular galaxy — a type thought to be similar to the very earliest galaxies in the Universe.
30-year-old mission to study the magnetosphere comes to a close
An artist's concept of the Geotail spacecraft.
Juice spacecraft heading to spaceport ahead of mission to study Jupiter’s moons
Juice is scheduled for launch in 2022 on a seven-year journey to the Jovian system. Its tour will include a dedicated orbit phase of Jupiter, targeted flybys of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and finally nine months orbiting Ganymede – the first time any moon beyond our own has been orbited by a spacecraft. In the artist’s impression, which is not to scale, Ganymede is shown in the foreground, Callisto to the far right, and Europa centre-right. Volcanically active moon Io is also shown, at left. The moons were imaged by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft; Jupiter is seen here with a vivid aurora, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Satellite images of penguin poop lead scientists to ‘exciting discovery’
A satellite image of Antarctica.
Astronaut’s stunning image of Key West looks like a painting
Key West from the ISS.
SpaceX takes big step toward first flight of most powerful rocket
SpaceX's Starship spacecraft being placed atop the Super Heavy rocket.
Rocket Lab aces its first launch from U.S. soil
Rocket Lab launching an Electron rocket from the U.S.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carries its heaviest payload to space
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket heads to space.