NASA - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

01/22/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/22/2025 10:47

NASA Spacecraft to Study Sun’s Corona Arrives for Final Launch Preparations

Teams at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California offload several shipping containers protecting NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. PUNCH will make 3D observations of the Sun's corona to learn how the mass and energy becomes solar wind. PUNCH, along with NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late February 2025. Photo credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Alex Valdez

The four small satellites of NASA's PUNCH missionarrived Saturday, Jan. 18,at Astrotech Space Operations locatedat Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for final processing before launch.

PUNCH(Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere)is sharing a ride to space with NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionizationand Ices Explorer) space telescope which is targeted to launch no earlier than the end of February, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg space Force Base.

As part of final tests and checkouts, teams will test the solar arrays on each small satellite before they are mated to SPHEREx in preparation for encapsulation in Falcon 9's payload fairings.

The PUNCH mission will deploy four suitcase-sized satellites to observethe Sun and space with a combined field of view. Working together, the four PUNCH satellites will map out the region where the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, transitions to the solar wind, the constant outflow of material from the Sun.

PUNCH is led by Southwest Research Institute's offices in San Antonio, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 

NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the launch service for the missions.

Follow mission milestones ahead of launch on the PUNCH blogand SPHEREx blog.