New space telescope SPHEREx begins initial operation after successful launch
The SPHEREx, a space telescope jointly developed by South Korea and the United States, has entered an initial operation stage following its successful launch Wednesday, Seoul's aerospace agency said, Yonhap reports.
The SPHEREx was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday (Korea time) on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, according to the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA).
The SPHEREx observatory was detached from the rocket about three minutes after the launch and succeeded in communicating with Svalbard Ground Station in Norway, one of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) near space networks, at 1:30 p.m., it said in a release.
The 300 billion-won (US$488 million) telescope will survey the whole sky over its two-year mission after a 37-day initial operation in order to help scientists study how the universe formed and evolved, it said.
The SPHEREx telescope was jointly developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and NASA. KASI is a research institute that belongs to KASA.
Earlier, it was reported that SpaceX’s Startship spacecraft has tumbled and exploded in space last week minutes after lifting off from Texas.
