NASA missions with Boulder Valley connections launch from California

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA —NASA’s SPHEREx astrophysics observatory mission launched Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a rocket that also carried satellites for the agency’s PUNCH mission.

Both PUNCH, or Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, and SPHEREx, short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explore, have connections to the Boulder Valley.

SPHEREx, which will produce four complete all-sky maps during its two-year mission to study the nature of physics that drove cosmic inflation in the early universe, was designed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., the former aerospace arm of Westminster-based metal-packaging manufacturer Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL) that was sold to British defense contractor BAE Systems PLC last year. BAE then built the spacecraft and telescope after taking over Ball’s space business. 

A Boulder-based team with the Southwest Research Institute is leading the PUNCH mission, which seeks to study solar wind. 

“Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and sending both SPHEREx and PUNCH up on a single rocket doubles the opportunities to do incredible science in space,” NASA associate administrator Nicky Fox said in a prepared statement. “Congratulations to both mission teams as they explore the cosmos from far-out galaxies to our neighborhood star. I am excited to see the data returned in the years to come.”

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