Pandora exoplanet mission checks in after launch

by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 13, 2026

NASA mission controllers have acquired full signal from the agency's Pandora small satellite, confirming the health and initial operations of the exoplanet observatory following launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Jan. 11, 2026.

The spacecraft rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East, sharing the flight with the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, known as SPARCS, and the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope CubeSat, or BlackCAT.

Pandora is designed to study planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, that were discovered by other observatories, probing the composition of their atmospheres and how their host stars may generate or modify the signals detected from these distant worlds.

When an exoplanet passes in front of its star, atoms and molecules in the planet's atmosphere can absorb specific colors of starlight, leaving telltale fingerprints in the observed spectrum that astronomers can use to identify elements and compounds such as water vapor, hazes, or clouds.

However, stellar activity on the host star's surface can mimic or mask those atmospheric signatures, producing variations in brightness and spectral features that complicate efforts to reliably isolate the planet's contribution to the combined light.

To address this challenge, Pandora will monitor the brightness of each target star in visible wavelengths while at the same time collecting near infrared data from both the star and the transiting planet, providing a multiwavelength view that separates stellar noise from planetary signals.

The mission will repeatedly observe each selected exoplanet system 10 times for 24 hours at a stretch, building long time series that capture multiple transits and stellar variability patterns so scientists can model and subtract the stellar behavior.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland leads Pandora for the agency and supplied the infrared sensor that sits at the heart of the observatory's science payload.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is responsible for project management and engineering, and worked with Corning on the manufacture and development of the mission's telescope while also developing the imaging detector assemblies, control electronics, and associated thermal and mechanical subsystems.

Blue Canyon Technologies provided the spacecraft bus and is carrying out assembly, integration, and environmental testing, while NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley will handle data processing for the mission.

Pandora's mission operations center is located at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and a number of additional universities are contributing to the mission's science team, analysis, and interpretation of the exoplanet observations.

Launch services for Pandora were procured under NASA's Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare contract, known as VADR, which is managed by NASA's Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA will continue to share updates on Pandora and related exoplanet science through its NASA Universe and Kennedy Space Center accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram, and through the mission information page at https://science.nasa.gov/mission/pandora.