SpaceX may be a lot of things that collide, but you have to admit one thing: NASA approves. So much so that it will use SpaceX as a launch company for the SPHEREx program.
The SPHEREx project is very cool. The name stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (you can see why it needs a nickname), and it is meant to answer two big questions. First, it is supposed to help us understand how our universe evolved. Second, it is designed to trace the common building blocks of life in the galaxy – basically, how common are certain elements and in what combinations must they occur to make life happen?
Here’s a little more information from Space:
The SPHEREx instrument is capable of collecting optical and near-infrared light from your minda large number of sources: more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way itself and more than 300 million other galaxies. It will succeed in addressing two different but equally fundamental questions in the two different views.
By all accounts, SPHEREx will scan through the entire air and collect data in 96 different wavelengths of light. Within our Milky Way system, SPHEREx will map water and organic molecules, both of which are fundamental ingredients for life as we know it. And beyond our galaxy, it will look back on the very first moments of our universe. Scientists will be able to use its data to give preference to observing targets for other future space telescope missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.
The probe will hopefully only start in 2024 and make a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The launch will still be managed by NASA, and NASA will still have control of all the data – it just needs SpaceX as a ride out of the atmosphere.
With the money it had to pay to SpaceX, we’re looking at a mission that costs about $ 98.8 million – which may seem like a lot, but it might be a small price to pay to discover more about the mysteries of the universe.