Designed as a medium-class mission within NASA’s Explorers program, SPHEREx was selected by NASA for funding and development in February 2019. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, with James Bock of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) serving as principal investigator.

Watch live as NASA launches the SPHEREx telescope and PUNCH mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to explore the universe and the sun. SPHEREx will create a 3D all-sky map of 450 million galaxies, while PUNCH will use small satellites to study the sun’s impact on space weather and Earth’s communications.