Spacecraft Makers: SPHEREx and the Intense Tests That Prepared It for Space
Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx aims to capture millions of stars and galaxies in 102 colors, creating a unique 3D map to uncover clues about the universe’s origins. This video features Farah Alibay, a SPHEREx systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Brian Pramann, SPHEREx program manager at BAE Systems. Learn about the special facilities required for SPHEREx’s critical environmental tests, including thermal, acoustic, vibration, and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing. NASA is targeting Feb. 27, 2025, for the launch of SPHEREx, which will lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Go behind the scenes with the team working on NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope as they talk through their rigorous testing process.
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SPHEREx has made detailed multi-spectral observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, detecting an abundance of carbon dioxide gas in its coma (the extended gaseous atmosphere of a comet) and water ice in its nucleus. The observations were made between Aug. 7 to Aug. 15, when the object was about 290 million miles (470 million kilometers) from the Sun.
Read MoreNASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone to use the data to probe the secrets of the cosmos.
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How a NASA space telescope came together in a university lab
Read MoreAfter weeks of preparation, the space observatory has begun its science mission, taking about 3,600 unique images per day to create a map of the cosmos like no other.
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The SPHEREx astrophysics observatory will help answer big questions about the origins of our universe, of galaxies, and the ingredients for life in our galaxy.
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