Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) spacecraft Beauty Passes

  • Released Tuesday, December 5, 2023
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Punch beauty pass animation

PUNCH Overview

NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission is a constellation of four small satellites in Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the young solar wind, from the outermost solar atmosphere to the inner heliopshere. Images of unprecedented quality will help to close a 60-year gap in measurements of understanding of what occurs in this region of space.

PUNCH will share a ride to space with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission. The missions will launch no earlier than April 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

Credits

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

This page was originally published on Tuesday, December 5, 2023.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 2:39 PM EST.