PUNCH Passes Pre-Environmental Review

All PUNCH instruments are now ready to undergo final testing.
All PUNCH instruments are now ready to undergo final testing.

The PUNCH instrument, spacecraft, and integration teams presented the status of the mission to NASA and the PUNCH Standing Review Board (SRB) on the 27th and 28th of February, in the first SRB meeting since Critical Design Review in 2022. The PUNCH instruments are being integrated to the spacecraft now, in preparation for flight. The Pre-Environmental Review (PER) ensures that all is well before the completed Observatories undergo final testing for flight: vibration, thermal performance in vacuum, etc.

PUNCH is scheduled to launch with the SPHEREx mission on a shared SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), no later than 1-April-2025.

PER is a major milestone on the path to launch, and marks the shift in emphasis from construction and subsystem testing, to final integration and test of the complete systems —which will culminate in the delivery of four functioning and tested spacecraft to the VSFB facility for integration onto a launch vehicle adapter and the rocket itself, in preparation for launch.