NASA to Preview Sky-Mapping Space Telescope Ahead of Launch

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news conference at 12 p.m. EST Friday, Jan. 31, to discuss a new telescope that will improve our understanding of how the universe evolved and search for key ingredients for life in our galaxy.

Agency experts will preview NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission, which will help scientists better understand the structure of the universe, how galaxies form and evolve, and the origins and abundance of water. Launch is targeted for no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 27.

The news conference will be hosted at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Watch live on NASA+, as well as JPL's X and YouTube channels. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Laurie Leshin, director, NASA JPL, will provide opening remarks. Additional briefing participants include:

• Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters
• James Fanson, project manager, SPHEREx, NASA JPL
• Beth Fabinsky, deputy project manager, SPHEREx, NASA JPL 
• Jamie Bock, principal investigator, SPHEREx, Caltech
• Cesar Marin, SPHEREx integration engineer, Launch Services Program, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida

To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to: [email protected]. NASA's media accreditation policy is available online. Questions also can be asked on social media during the briefing using #AskNASA.

The SPHEREx observatory will survey the entire celestial sky in near-infrared light to help answer cosmic questions involving the birth of the universe, and the subsequent development of galaxies. It also will search for ices of water and organic molecules — essentials for life as we know it — in regions where stars are born from gas and dust, as well as disks around stars where new planets could be forming. Astronomers will use the mission to gather data on more than 450 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

The space observatory will share its ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will lift off from Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California. 

The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA JPL for the agency's Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The principal investigator is based at Caltech in Pasadena, California, which manages NASA JPL for the agency. 

The spacecraft is supplied by BAE Systems. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute contributed the non-flight cryogenic test chamber. Mission data will be publicly available through IPAC at Caltech.

For more information about the mission, visit:

https://nasa.gov/sphere

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SOURCE NASA