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| SPHEREx | |
|---|---|
| Name | SPHEREx |
| Mission type | Space telescope |
| Operator | NASA |
| Launch date | 2024 (planned) |
| Spacecraft bus | Small Explorer |
| Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace |
| Mission duration | 2 years (baseline) |
SPHEREx is a NASA Small Explorer-class observatory designed to perform an all-sky spectral survey in the near-infrared. The mission will map the entire sky with low-resolution spectroscopy to address questions in cosmology, galactic evolution, and planetary system formation. SPHEREx will provide a uniform spectral database intended to complement missions and facilities across astronomy and astrophysics.
SPHEREx originates from proposals to the NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) program and builds on heritage from missions and projects including COBE, WISE, 2MASS, IRAS, and Spitzer Space Telescope. The project involves partners from institutions such as Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, Princeton University, Cornell University, Ball Aerospace, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The observatory targets near-infrared bands sampled by instruments previously flown on Hubble Space Telescope instruments and by ground-based facilities such as Keck Observatory, Subaru Telescope, Very Large Telescope, and Gemini Observatory.
SPHEREx has three principal scientific objectives tied to distinct astrophysical themes: cosmology, galactic archaeology, and planetary system studies. For cosmology, the survey aims to constrain models of inflation, probe primordial non-Gaussianity, and improve measurements of large-scale structure to complement data from Planck, Euclid, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and DESI. For galactic archaeology, SPHEREx will identify and characterize millions of stars to advance understanding of stellar populations probed by missions like Gaia, APOGEE, and SDSS. For planetary system studies, the mission will investigate ice and organics in star-forming regions and debris disks, complementing observations from ALMA, James Webb Space Telescope, and SOFIA.
The SPHEREx instrument is a cryogenic, low-resolution spectrometer that obtains R~40 spectra across 0.75–5.0 µm in multiple spectral channels using a wide-field slitless design. The payload leverages detector technology related to arrays used on JWST, Hubble Space Telescope/WFC3, and WISE/NEOWISE. The spacecraft bus and thermal design draw on engineering practices from Small Explorer program, Ball Aerospace platforms, and heritage components from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other JPL missions. The mission architecture includes a sun-synchronous or quasi-sun-synchronous orbit to provide stable thermal and sky coverage analogous to orbits used by Landsat, Suomi NPP, and other Earth-observing platforms.
SPHEREx will execute an all-sky survey through repetitive scanning to build up spectral maps with uniform sensitivity. The survey strategy coordinates with legacy catalogs such as 2MASS, WISE, Pan-STARRS1, SDSS, and GALEX for cross-calibration and source identification. Data products will include calibrated spectra, source catalogs, spectral templates, and cosmological maps formatted to be interoperable with archives like Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, Infrared Science Archive, and virtual observatory standards used by International Astronomical Union working groups. The mission plan emphasizes rapid public release policies to serve communities engaged with Euclid, Roman Space Telescope, LSST, DES, and eROSITA.
SPHEREx is expected to produce a suite of discoveries across multiple scales: constraints on models of cosmic inflation and non-Gaussianity parameters that inform theoretical frameworks tied to researchers at institutions such as Institute for Advanced Study, Perimeter Institute, and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. The stellar catalog component will enable chemical tagging studies complementing surveys like GALAH, LAMOST, and RAVE. In planetary science, SPHEREx will map ices and organics in star-forming regions and protoplanetary disks relevant to systems studied by T Tauri stars, Orion Nebula, Taurus Molecular Cloud, and objects such as Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Cross-disciplinary synergies are anticipated with investigators from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Cambridge, and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
Mission operations are conducted by teams at JPL, NASA Ames Research Center, and partner institutions, following timelines similar to other NASA Explorers including Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Swift, and NuSTAR. The baseline mission duration is two years with potential extensions comparable to WISE and Spitzer extensions. Key milestones include launch integration, commissioning, the primary all-sky survey phases, data releases coordinated with archives like MAST and IRSA, and community-led legacy science programs in the years after primary operations.
The SPHEREx project is managed under the oversight of NASA with leadership from principal investigators at Caltech and partnering institutions including JPL, Ball Aerospace, Cornell, Princeton, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and international collaborators connected to agencies such as ESA and research centers like Max Planck Society. The collaboration engages scientists from observational programs associated with Keck Observatory, Subaru Telescope, ALMA, VLA, Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, and theoretical groups at CERN and national laboratories such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory.