SpaceX targets Jan. 11 launch of NASA’s Pandora cubesat from Vandenberg

SpaceX is targeting a 57-minute launch window that opens at 8:19 a.m. EST (5:19 a.m. PST) Sunday, Jan. 11, from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for its Twilight commercial rideshare mission, which includes NASA’s Pandora small satellite. A live webcast of the mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff.

Pandora is slated to travel to a sun-synchronous orbit, which will let it pass over the same spot on Earth at roughly the same time each day with the Sun positioned behind the satellite to minimize light variations. Pandora is designed to study the atmospheres of at least 20 exoplanets and the activity of their host stars.

When planets transit their stars, atmospheric substances can leave chemical fingerprints in the light, but stellar activity can produce similar fingerprints or alter those signals. Pandora will use its telescope to collect visible and infrared light from each system 10 times for 24 hours at a time to help separate planetary and stellar signals and determine the origins of elements and molecules such as water and oxygen.

The satellite’s near-infrared detector is a spare instrument originally developed for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and Pandora’s observations are expected to help improve Webb’s ability to differentiate planetary atmospheres from their host stars. Two other NASA-sponsored CubeSats, SPARCS and BlackCAT, are also part of the Twilight rideshare.

Key Topics

Science, Pandora Cubesat, Spacex, Vandenberg, Nasa, Sparcs