NASA’s SPHEREX and PUNCH Missions Launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base

  • Released Monday, March 17, 2025
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Ignition, and liftoff! At 11:10 p.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. PDT) March 11, 2025, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions.

SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) will orbit Earth for a two-year prime mission and create a three-dimensional map of the cosmos. This will help scientists answer major questions about what happened in the first second after the big bang, how galaxies form and evolve, and the origins and abundance of water and other key ingredients for life in our galaxy.

Ride-sharing with SPHEREx was NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will study the outer portion of the Sun, the corona, to understand how solar wind forms.

For more information on SPHEREx: nasa.gov/spherex

For more information on PUNCH: science.nasa.gov/mission/punch

Highlights from the March 11, 2025, launch of NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope, which will observe hundreds of millions of galaxies near and far, mapping the entire sky in 102 wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye. The spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:10 p.m. EST (8:10 p.m. PDT).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, March 8, 2025.Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, March 8, 2025.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, March 8, 2025.Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, March 8, 2025.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

For More Information

See https://science.nasa.gov/mission/punch/

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Monday, March 17, 2025.
This page was last updated on Monday, March 17, 2025 at 9:13 AM EDT.