![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/meatball-w-black-background.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure>NASA has selected SpaceX of Starbase, Texas, to provide the launch service for the agency\u2019s Pandora mission, which will study at least 20 known exoplanets and their host stars to find out how changes in stars affect our observations of exoplanet atmospheres.<\/p>\n
The selection is part of NASA\u2019s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare<\/a> (VADR) launch services contract. This contract allows the agency to make fixed-price indefinite-delivery\/indefinite-quantity awards during VADR\u2019s five-year ordering period, with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts.<\/p>\n During its one-year primary mission, Pandora<\/a> will observe each exoplanet 10 times, observing for 24 hours each visit. It will capture critical data about the planet and its host star during transits, an event where a planet crosses in front of the star it orbits.<\/p>\n The satellite will use an innovative 17-inch (45-centimeter)-wide all-aluminum telescope to simultaneously measure the visible and near-infrared brightness of the host star and obtain near-infrared spectra of the transiting planet. This will allow scientists to cleanly separate star and planetary signals, knowledge that will enhance observations from NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> and future missions searching for habitable worlds, like the agency\u2019s Habitable Worlds Observatory<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pandora is a joint effort between NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The Astrophysics Pioneers<\/a> program, from the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, funds Pandora and other astrophysics science missions using smaller, lower cost hardware and payloads. NASA\u2019s Launch Services Program, based at the agency\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR contract.<\/p>\n To learn more about NASA\u2019s Pandora mission, visit:<\/p>\n https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/pandora<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n -end-<\/p>\n Tiernan Doyle Patti Bielling
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-7575
patricia.a.bielling@nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\nShare<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n