Tech Desk 
Feb 06, 2025
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is gearing up to launch a new sun mission Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission, a constellation of four small satellites designed to study the Sun.
The PUNCH mission is scheduled to launch on February 27 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
It will launch along NASA's new space telescope, Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionisation, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), which will embark on a two-year mission to map the universe and uncover its secrets.
This duo will lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California, US, marking the latest launch under NASA's Launch Services Programme.
"PUNCH is the first mission specifically designed to unify two particular major fields within heliophysics: solar physics and solar wind physics," PUNCH's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute Craig DeForest noted.
The PUNCH mission will provide critical insights into the sun's behaviour and its impact on the surrounding space.
By studying the connection between the corona and the solar wind, scientists hope to gain a deeper understanding of how the solar wind chamber, known as the heliosphere, is created.
What is heliosphere?
The heliosphere is a region around the sun that encapsulates our entire solar system. It is formed when solar wind particles stream from the sun and press into the interstellar medium, creating a barrier between the solar wind-dominated space and the rest of the universe.
