{"id":471479,"date":"2026-05-06T15:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471479\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:53:14","slug":"first-images-from-the-pandora-exoplanet-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471479\/","title":{"rendered":"First Images From the Pandora Exoplanet Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pandora exoplanet mission returns its first engineering images from space.<\/p>\n

A new mission promises to ‘open the box’ on exoplanet science. Scientists and engineers recently released the first engineering images<\/a> from the Pandora exoplanet survey mission. The pictures represent the first ever images from a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission. Established in 2020, the program looks to test the feasibility of small low cost missions designed to address key questions in astronomy and astrophysics. <\/p>\n

Pandora launched<\/a> from Vandenberg Space Force Base on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 11th of this year, along with SPARCS and BlackCAT. The launch was part of the Twilight rideshare initiative<\/a>. The smallsat was developed for NASA in partnership with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) along with Blue Canyon Technologies, and Corning Incorporated.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a> A test calibration image from the NIRDA instrument. The inset shows the dispersal of light into vertical lines. Credit: LLNL.<\/p>\n

The Pandora mission<\/a> has two primary instruments working in tandem in the visible to near infrared wavelengths. Instruments onboard include: <\/p>\n

CODA \u2013 named after a family of telescopes built by LLNL in partnership with Corning, CODA is a 45-centimeter diameter Cassegrain instrument at the heart of the system.
VISDA \u2013 The Visible Detector Assembly photometer.
\nNIRDA \u2013 The Near-infrared Detector Assembly spectrograph. NIRDA is actually a repurposed, backup copy of JWST\u2019s NIRCam instrument. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a> A first image from the VISDA camera, highlighting the instrument’s sensitivity across visible into infrared wavelengths. Credit: LLNL.<\/p>\n

The University of Arizona, NASA Goddard and the Ames Research Center will control Pandora and carry out daily operations once science observations get underway. <\/p>\n

Pandora will operate through a minimum one year, nominal mission. The plan is for the space observatory to perform follow-up observations of 20 known transiting exoplanets, with 10 transit measurements per target. Each observation will last about 24 hours, and the spacecraft much remain pointed and stable throughout this span.<\/p>\n

\"Pandora<\/a> Pandora in the clean room on Earth. Credit: NASA.<\/p>\n

Once it\u2019s out of its commissioning phase, Pandora will get down to the business of exoplanet observations. The simultaneous, long period visible and IR observations will allow scientists to tease out false stellar signals, to include variability and \u2018starspot\u2019 activity, while the IR measurements could identify water and hydrogen-rich atmospheres enshrouding the exoplanets themselves.<\/p>\n

\"Pandora<\/a> Pandora in the payload stack awaiting fairing encapsulation for launch. Credit: SpaceX.<\/p>\n

Target candidates<\/a> include members of the WASP (the Wide Angle Search for Planets) HAT (the Hungarian Automated Telescope network) and TOI (TESS Objects of Interest) catalog. <\/p>\n

The mission is also expected to refine variability and transit times for these targets. Many of these come from NASA\u2019s citizen science Exoplanet Watch initiative. <\/p>\n

The images show that the instruments are working as they should, dispersing light (the yellow streaks seen in the inset to the right) from NIRDA. These in turn will allow researchers to measure the intensities of light at various wavelengths. The images were transmitted on January 19th, just eight days after launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team is exceptionally pleased with the system\u2019s pointing stability,\u201d says Jordan Karburn (LLNL) in a recent press release<\/a>. \u201cIt was a driving factor that led to LLNL\u2019s partnership with BCT to provide the spacecraft.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even the dark flanks of the first engineering images show something vital, that NIRDA\u2019s cryo-cooler assembly is functioning within limits and keeping the instrument at optimal 110 Kelvin (-163\u00ba Celsius) temperatures. <\/p>\n

Pandora is the first in a new generation of exoplanet missions. Pandora represents a new, next generation of low-cost, exoplanet hunting missions set to address key questions. Pioneers Program missions have a cost cap of 20$ million.<\/p>\n

\"Pandora,<\/a> Pandora, along with a flotilla of exoplanet space telescopes and ground surveys. Credit: NASA.<\/p>\n

The next mission in the program is Aspera, designed to study galaxies in the extreme ultraviolet and set for launch in August 2026 on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. <\/p>\n

Spotting Pandora is tough, as the mission is in a Sun-synchronous orbit. This unique sort of high polar retrograde orbit was once the sole regime of Earth-observing (and spy) satellites, but is now finding applications for astrophysics missions. In the case of Pandora<\/a>, this allows for uninterrupted views of targets angled away from the Sun, aiming towards the exclusion angle away from the Earth. Pandora must be rock-steady during observations, achieving sub-millimeter pointing stability all while orbiting the Earth once every 97 minutes. The IDs for the Pandora mission are 2026-004AJ\/67395.<\/p>\n

Pandora demonstrates that smaller, low cost missions can still generate cutting edge science, and pack a big punch. It\u2019ll be exciting to see the Pandora mission start to produce science results later this year, as exoplanets start to become real worlds in the eyes of a new generation of space telescopes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pandora exoplanet mission returns its first engineering images from space. A new mission promises to ‘open the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,133,451],"class_list":{"0":"post-471479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116528442175420082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}