SpaceX will launch an astrophysics mission to Earth’s orbit for NASA.
NASA has chosen the space company to launch the SPHEREx mission (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California on Thursday (4 February) announced.
The 329 lbs. (178 kilograms) vessels will occupy the space aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which will launch as early as June 2024, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch will be managed by NASA’s Launch Services program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The NASA JPL remains responsible for overall project management, systems engineering, integration, testing and mission operations for the mission, the agency’s officials said in a statement.
Related: NASA will launch a new space telescope in 2023 to study the universe
SPHEREx is a space observatory and the latest mid-range spacecraft under NASA’s Explorers program for astrophysics missions. NASA’s other medium-class vessels within this series of missions include the planetary spacecraft TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and ICON (The Ionospheric Connection Explorer), which studies the Earth’s ionosphere – the region in the atmosphere of our planet where the weather space weather meet.
The probe is expected to scan the sky in near-infrared light for two years and complete a full survey every six months.
This light is not visible to the naked eye to our humans, but it can allow the vessel to observe distant galaxies. Using data from the artwork, scientists aim to make a survey that measures the unique signatures of more than 300 million galaxies in the universe and 100 million stars in our Milky Way galaxy, ultimately creating a unique aerial map.
The spacecraft will not only map these distant destinations, but also look for signs of water and organic molecules in star nurseries – star-forming regions rich in interstellar gas and dust – and in the disks of material revolving around stars, where planets could form. By searching for water and organic molecules, which make life as we do on earth possible, scientists could investigate habitability much further from home.
Related: Scientists have mapped just 1 million new galaxies in 300 hours
“This amazing mission will be a treasure trove of unique data for astronomers,” Thomas Zurbuchen, co-administrator of NASA’s Directorate of Science Mission, said in a 2019 NASA statement. “It will produce an unprecedented galactic map containing ‘fingerprints’ from the first moments in the history of the universe. And we have new clues to one of the greatest mysteries in science: the big explosion? “
This mission costs NASA approximately $ 98.8 million, including this launch service with SpaceX, in addition to other ‘mission-related costs’, according to NASA JPL. The mission is funded by the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Directorate of Science Mission, located at NASA’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.