The Lompoc Public Library System is joining with NASA to host two pre-launch events for the upcoming launch of the SHPEREx & PUNCH mission. SPHEREx and its rideshare PUNCH is scheduled to lift off Thursday, Feb. 27 from Vandenberg Space Force Base on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

The pre-launch events offering presentations by NASA staff, activities for children, and mission pins, posters and stickers, will be 5:30-7 p.m. Feb. 25, and 2-4 p.m. Feb. 26 in Grossman Gallery at Lompoc Public Library, 501 E. North Ave.

SPHEREx: (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is a space telescope. The two-year mission will survey the sky in optical as well as near-infrared light, allowing astronomers to gather data on 450-plus million galaxies.

PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, to learn how the mass and energy there become the solar wind.

The SPHEREx mission is managed by JPL. BAE Systems Inc built the telescope and the spacecraft bus, and a team of scientists located in the U.S., South Korea, and Taiwan will analyze the data.

Direct questions to the Lompoc Public Library, 805-875-8775.

For more about the Lompoc Public Library System, visit cityoflompoc.com/library.