NASA's PUNCH Satellites Deploy from SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
Release Date: March 12, 2025
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NASA's PUNCH Satellites Deploy from SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
NASA's SPHEREx Observatory Separates from SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory separates from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage on its way to begin its science mission from a sun-synchronous orbit about 404 miles (650 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
SPHEREx is NASA’s newest space telescope that “will observe hundreds of millions of galaxies and other objects during its two-year mission, mapping the cosmos in wavelengths invisible to the human eye”.
NASA's SPHEREx & PUNCH Missions: Liftoff on SpaceX Falcon 9 at Vandenberg
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched NASA's SPHEREx and PUNCH Missions from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg in California on March 12, 2025, at 11:10pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Falcon 9’s first stage landed on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg. Falcon 9’s first stage (B1088) previously supported NROL-126 and Transporter-12.
The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) is NASA’s newest space telescope that “will observe hundreds of millions of galaxies and other objects during its two-year mission, mapping the cosmos in wavelengths invisible to the human eye”. The Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) is a “constellation of four small satellites in a polar (Sun-synchronous) low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the entire inner heliosphere to learn how the Sun's corona becomes the solar wind”.
Learn more about the SPHEREx Mission:
IM-2 Athena Lander on Moon's Surface | NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) acquired this close oblique view of the Athena Lander on March 10, 2025, at 14:52 UTC, bringing it into sharper focus. North and nearside to the right, image width 1,175 meters.
Intuitive Machines Final Update: "The IM-2 mission lunar lander, Athena, landed 250 meters from its intended landing site in the Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole, inside of a crater."
"Images downlinked from Athena on the lunar surface confirmed that Athena was on her side. After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA’s PRIME-1 suite, before the lander’s batteries depleted."
"With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission."
"This southern pole region is lit by harsh sun angles and limited direct communication with the Earth. This area has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 will open this region for further space exploration."
Rocket Lab’s Commercial Solution to Mars Sample Return for NASA
Collecting samples from the planet Mars and bringing them back to Earth is a historic undertaking that began with the success of NASA's Perseverance rover in collecting samples on the Martian surface in Jezero Crater over the past four years.
Rocket Lab: "Mars Sample Return doesn’t have to take decades or break the bank. This animation showcases Rocket Lab’s proposed mission architecture to bring Martian samples to Earth."
Learn more about Rocket Lab's proposal: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/mars-sample-return/
NASA's Artemis II ICPS Moon Rocket Stage-2 Arrives at Kennedy Space Center
The flight-ready Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage-2 (ICPS-2) has been delivered by United Launch Alliance (ULA) to NASA's Kennedy Space Center for the Artemis II launch. The ICPS-2 was manufactured by ULA in collaboration with Boeing to serve as the upper stage to the Space Launch System (SLS) mega rocket. It will launch an international crew of four astronauts around the Moon on the Artemis II mission.
ULA built the stage at the rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama, then shipped ICPS-2 to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for final testing and check out activities.
With that work now completed, ICPS-2 was moved from ULA's Delta Operations Center high bay to NASA's Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) at Kennedy Space Center. Standing more than 45 feet tall and secured in its Vertical Transport Fixture, the ICPS rode aboard an Elevating Platform Transporter that provided hydraulic leveling and precision positioning capabilities along the route.
Technicians at the MPPF will load hydrazine in the ICPS-2's attitude control system to make in-flight maneuvers and prep the stage for its forthcoming transfer to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to undergo stacking operations.
Artemis II will launch no earlier than April 2026.
Emission Nebula NGC 2264 in Monoceros
Planet Mars: Fluvial Fan on a Crater Floor | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
The resolution of HiRISE helps scientists determine the topography of the region that is needed for establishing the stratigraphic relations and flow direction of the area.
Image cutout is less than 5 km (3 mi) top to bottom and the spacecraft altitude was 292 km (182 mi) and north is to the right.
Image acquisition date: November 17, 2011
Local Mars time: 14:34
Latitude (centered): 35.151°
Longitude (East): 304.531°
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, to provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and to relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, and reached Mars on March 10, 2006.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE. It was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #Planet #RedPlanet #Geology #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #Crater #FluvialFan #Delta #MRO #MarsOrbiter #MarsSpacecraft #HiRISECamera #JPL #Caltech #BallAerospace #MSSS #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
NASA's SPHEREx & PUNCH Science Missions on SpaceX Falcon 9 at Vandenberg
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory and Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) satellites, is vertical at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg in California. SpaceX is now targeting Tuesday, March 11, 2025, with liftoff targeted for 8:10 pm Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)/11:10 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). SPHEREx will use its telescope to provide an all-sky spectral survey, creating a 3D map of the entire sky to help scientists investigate the origins of our universe. PUNCH will study origins of the Sun’s outflow of material, or the solar wind, capturing continuous 3D images of the Sun’s corona and the solar wind’s journey into the solar system.
NASA's SpaceX Falcon 9 & Crew-10 Dragon Pre-launch | Kennedy Space Center
NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 is targeted to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Europe's Solar Orbiter Spots a Solar Flare in High Resolution | ESA
This dazzling solar flare was captured by the European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission on September 30, 2024. Never before has a space mission been able to observe solar flares in such high resolution in space and time. The video is sped up. In reality the flare lasted about 15 minutes. A solar flare is a tremendous explosion on the Sun that happens when energy stored in ‘twisted’ magnetic fields is suddenly released. In a matter of just a few minutes a solar flare heats material to many millions of degrees and produces bursts of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays.
The radiation from solar flares directly affects Earth’s upper atmosphere and radio communications. This is why it is so important that we watch and monitor flares to better understand them. This flare was classified as a medium-sized or ‘M-class’ flare, which can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions.
The video uses images taken by Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument. It was made by scientists at the Royal Observatory of Belgium using the JHelioviewer software that anyone can use to make their own solar flare movies. All EUI data is accessible through the JHelioviewer application.
Solar Orbiter’s instruments: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/01/Solar_Orbiter_s_instruments
NASA's SpaceX Crew-10: Preparing for Launch | Kennedy Space Center
NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 is targeted to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Shenzhou-19 Crew: New Breathtaking Earth Views | China Space Station
Video footage shot through a window of China's Tiangong Space Station offers examples of stunning views of our Earth far below.
The Shenzhou-19 crew, including the country's first female space engineer, was sent into space on October 30, 2024, for a six-month mission. Their mission work includes 86 space science research and technology experiments.
Shenzhou-19 Crew:
Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲)
Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽)
Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
The Flame Nebula in Orion: Hubble & Webb Views Compared | NASA
This video alternates between a Hubble Space Telescope and a James Webb Space Telescope observation of the Flame Nebula, a nearby star-forming nebula less than 1 million years old. In this comparison, three low-mass objects are highlighted. In Hubble’s observation, the low-mass objects are hidden by the region’s dense dust and gas. However, the objects are brought out in the Webb observation due to Webb's sensitivity to faint infrared light. The Flame Nebula is located about 1,400 light-years away from Earth. Within the Flame Nebula, there are objects so small that their cores will never be able to fuse hydrogen like full-fledged stars—brown dwarfs.
#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #HST #JWST #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #SpaceTelescopes #Nebulae #Nebula #FlameNebula #Stars #BrownDwarfs #Orion #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
The Flame Nebula in Orion: Visible & Infrared Light Views | Hubble & Webb
This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a visible light view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. Much of the dark, dense gas and dust, as well as the surrounding white clouds within the visible light image, have been cleared in the near-infrared images, giving us a view into a more translucent cloud pierced by the infrared-producing objects within that are young stars and brown dwarfs. Astronomers used Webb to take a census of the lowest-mass objects within this star-forming region.
In this image, light at wavelengths of 1.15 microns and 1.4 microns (filters F115W and F140M) is represented in blue, 1.82 microns (F182M) as green, 3.6 microns (F360M) as orange, and 4.3 microns (F430M) as red.
Image Description: A collage of three images showing a dusty nebula. The left two-thirds of the collage is taken up by an image of the nebula in visible light. The remaining third is taken up by two other images, one atop the other, in near-infrared. Wispy plumes appear to fly off from the pillar toward the sides amid blue clouds of the same material that are whiter near the pillar. There are many white stars spread throughout. Two separate, white squares, tilted about 30 degrees, outline two areas in the pillar. Both images contain a mixture of reds, blues and browns, and show red, blue, and white stars.
#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #HST #JWST #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #SpaceTelescopes #Nebulae #Nebula #FlameNebula #Stars #BrownDwarfs #Orion #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education
Objects Detected Inside The Flame Nebula: View 2 | James Webb Space Telescope
Image 1 Description: There is an orange and yellow fang-like cloud of matter that cuts the image in two. The left side of the fang shows more clouds of a dark brown shade, while the right shows filaments of light brown. There are a number of bright blue and red points of light spread throughout.
Image 2 Description: A collage of four images showing a dusty nebula. Two-thirds of the collage is taken up by a single image of the nebula, while the remaining third shows three insets stacked on top of each other. In the largest image at left, there is an orange and yellow fang-like cloud of matter that cuts the image in two. There are a number of bright blue and red points of light spread throughout, three of which are circled in white and labeled with a number from one to three. Each circle magnifies an individual object and contains a single, fuzzy point of light in the middle.