flown bySpaceXUSA

SPHEREx

Success
MAR 12202503:10:12 UTC

SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is a NASA all-sky infrared survey observatory that maps the sky in 102 color bands - more than any previous all-sky survey. Its three science goals are to probe cosmic inflation by tracing the large-scale structure of hundreds of millions of galaxies, measure the history of cosmic star formation, and map the abundance of water and carbon-dioxide ice in the Milky Way's star-forming regions.

PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) is a NASA constellation of four small spacecraft - one narrow-field coronagraph and three wide-field heliospheric imagers - that together track how solar coronal material becomes the solar wind flowing through the inner solar system. PUNCH flew as a rideshare, sharing the fairing with SPHEREx.

launched fromSLC-4EVandenberg

aboardFalcon 9 B5F9-444intoSSO

Booster

B1088.3

Landed on ground pad · LZ-4

Payloads · 5

  • 01

    SPHEREx (MIDEX-9/Explorer-102)

    Near-infrared astronomy

  • 02

    PUNCH-NFI (SMEX-15A/Explorer-98)

    Heliophysics

  • 03

    PUNCH-WFI 1 (SMEX-15B/Explorer-99)

    Heliophysics

  • 04

    PUNCH-WFI 2 (SMEX-15C/Explorer-101)

    Heliophysics

  • 05

    PUNCH-WFI 3 (SMEX-15D/Explorer-100)

    Heliophysics

last updatedMay 2, 2026