A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soars upward after liftoff from the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1 a.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. The Falcon 9 carries NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft. NASA’s Launch Services Program managed this launch. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the IXPE mission. Ball Aerospace, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, manages spacecraft operations with support from the University of Colorado at Boulder. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Explorers Program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The IXPE spacecraft includes three space telescopes with sensitive detectors capable of measuring the polarization of cosmic X-rays, allowing scientists to answer fundamental questions about extremely complex environments in space where gravitational, electric, and magnetic fields are at their limits. The project is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency.
Photo credit: NASA/Cory Huston