Called SPHEREx, and set for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base no sooner than Tuesday night, the telescope will go into a polar orbit that will allow it to survey the entire sky in 102 different wavelengths every six months.

NASA is preparing to launch a megaphone-shaped observatory on a mission to better understand what happened immediately after the Big Bang that initiated the universe and to search the Milky Way for reservoirs of water,