Post: Space Telescope SPHEREx Begins Initial Operation After Successful Launch

Seoul: The SPHEREx, a space telescope jointly developed by South Korea and the United States, has entered an initial operation stage following its successful launch Wednesday, Seoul's aerospace agency said. According to Qatar News Agency, the SPHEREx was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Wednesday on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, as reported by the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA). The SPHEREx observatory was detached from the rocket about three minutes after the launch and succeeded in communicating with Svalbard Ground Station in Norway, one of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) near space networks, it said in a release. The 300 billion-won (US$488 million) telescope will survey the whole sky over its two-year mission after a 37-day initial operation in order to help scientists study how the universe formed and evolved, it said. The SPHEREx telescope was jointly developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and NASA. KASI is a resea rch institute that belongs to KASA.