SpaceX launches Euclid space telescope to study ‘dark universe’
Dark energy and dark matter are enigmatic concepts targeted by a European Space Agency space telescope named Euclid that launched from the Space Coast on Saturday.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 11:12 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 on the ESA mission that looks to send Euclid to a point nearly 1 million miles from Earth close to where the James Webb Space Telescope is parked in space.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/2IZ3pJcsSd
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 1, 2023
The first-stage booster for the flight made its second launch and made its recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. The launch was the 33rd on the Space Coast for the year, with 31 of the 33 by SpaceX.
Euclid, named after the Greek mathematician known as the father of geometry, is a 15-foot-tall, 12-foot-diameter probe armed with a telescope that has both a visible-wavelength camera and a near-infrared camera and spectrometer with sensors provided by NASA.