The SPHEREx mission will create a 3D map of the entire sky. Its cutting-edge instruments require a custom-built chamber to make sure they’ll be ready to operate in space. After three years of design and construction, a monthlong boat ride across the Pacific Ocean, and a lift from a 30-ton crane, the customized test chamber for NASA’s upcoming SPHEREx mission has finally reached its destination at Caltech’s Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pasadena. About the size of a small SUV and made of stainless steel, the cylindrical chamber was built by the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), a partner in the SPHEREx mission. It will be used to test SPHEREx’s detectors (essentially its cameras) and optics (the system that collects light from the cosmos). Read more about this important milestone for the SPHEREx project here.
The SPHEREx observatory is now fully assembled and ready to enter its environmental test campaign.
Read MoreThe final assembly of the SPHEREx observatory has began.
Read MorePhil Korngut tests NASA’s SPHEREx telescope under extreme conditions in the SPHEREx laboratory in California.
Read MoreThe SPHEREx List of ICE Sources (SPLICEs), just published by a team led by CfA astronomers Matthew Ashby and Joseph Hora, presents a catalog of 8.9 million objects of interest for the upcoming SPHEREx Ices investigation.
Read MoreKey elements are coming together for NASA’s SPHEREx mission, a space telescope that will create a map of the universe like none before. NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is beginning to look much like it will when it arrives in Earth orbit and starts mapping the entire sky.
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