PUNCH News

The four PUNCH spacecraft are separating nominally and performing well sixty hours post-launch, as they prepare for their groundbreaking science. All four have demonstrated high speed S-band communications, entered fine pointing mode, and are in good health and ready to transition to “normal operations”. Commissioning will continue, but will be staffed single shift only (rather than 24-hours) and use nominal pass priority with the ground data network provider. Ground tracks from the spacecraft themselves (using on board GPS) agree with NORAD tracks and are consistent with both the mission design and deployment videos from launch day. The PUNCH Observatories carry orbital-trim thrusters; a midcourse correction is planned for later in March, to ensure identical orbital planes and even spacing as the PUNCH WFI Observatories drift to 120° relative spacing in mean anomaly.

In the predawn hours of March 4, the PUNCH spacecraft – now encapsulated in a 43-foot-tall Falcon 9 fairing – were transported across Vandenberg Space Force Base to the SpaceX hangar and pad failiities at Space Launch Center 4, on the south side of the base. The moment was captured by a passenger on the morning Amtrak train from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles, visible through the tinted window of a passenger car as the train paused at the Surf Beach station west of VSFB.

The four PUNCH spacecraft are now at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California, undergoing final test and integration to the “launch stack” with the SPHEREx spacecraft. All five spacecraft are planned to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than February 27, 2025.

On 15 January, PUNCH passed a combined pre-shipment & operational readiness review, clearing us to ship the four spacecraft and necessary ground equipment from SwRI’s headquarters in San Antonio, TX to to Vandenberg Space Force Base. There they will undergo final integration with the launch carrier, the SPHEREx spacecraft, and a Falcon 9 rocket. The PUNCH team's operational plans, tools, training, and personnel were found to be sufficient to operate and commission the constellation from the Mission Operations Center at SwRI’s offices in Boulder, Colorado. Congratulations to everyone on a hard-fought and hard-won I&T campaign!

We invite the community to the sixth PUNCH (Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere) Science Meeting on February 25th and 26th, 2025 at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Major science topics include the origin and evolution of the ambient solar wind and turbulence within it and the physics, tracking, and predictability of transient events including CMEs, CIRs, and shocks.

We invited the community to the fifth PUNCH (Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere) Science Meeting (June 20-21, 2024) in Boulder, Colorado. Major science topics included the origin and evolution of the ambient solar wind and turbulence within it and the physics, tracking, and predictability of transient events including CMEs, CIRs, and shocks.

The WFI-1 Observatory is now fully integrated! It is the PUNCH fleet leader through environmental testing, which is scheduled to begin this week. On Friday 26-April, the WFI-1 Observatory collected its first science image through the WFI instrument: a team selfie in the Building 299 clean room where PUNCH I&T is proceeding. The image includes the WFI baffle “horizon” (at left, as the Observatory was on its side in the mounting cage), the massive doors into the high bay, one of the other Observatories in the background, and seven team members who were conducting the test. From left to right: Kelly Smith, Jim Foster, Ronnie Killough, Glenn Laurent, Emily Fisher, Brandon Perez, and Tonya Brody, all in cleanroom garb, with another PUNCH spacecraft visible just over Tonya’s shoulder.