NASA delays launch of newest space telescope to search for life’s key ingredients.

NASA’s newest space telescope, SPHEREx, designed to seek out the key ingredients for life in the Milky Way, and a sun-focused mission called PUNCH, will have to wait a bit longer to lift off to space together, according to the space agency.

Both missions were expected to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:09 p.m. ET (7:09 PT) Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. But NASA and SpaceX announced mission teams were standing down from the attempt.

Multiple launch windows are available through April.

The launch window originally opened on February 28. But weather and a series of integration issues cropped up as engineers attached both missions to the rocket and encapsulated them within a protective faring, which delayed the proceedings, said Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA Science Missions at SpaceX.

Although the missions have entirely different goals, launching PUNCH as a secondary rideshare along with SPHEREx helps get “more science into space for less cost,” said Dr. Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. And it helps that the missions are going to a similar place: a sun-synchronous orbit around Earth’s poles, meaning each spacecraft keeps the same orientation relative to the sun throughout the year.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com

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