{"id":232275,"date":"2026-01-14T06:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232275\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T06:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:49:07","slug":"nasas-pandora-small-satellite-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232275\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Pandora Small Satellite Launched"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this photo from early January 2026, teams prepare to encapsulate NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/universe\/exoplanets\/nasas-pandora-satellite-cubesats-to-explore-exoplanets-beyond\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Pandora<\/a> small satellite, NASA-sponsored Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), and the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT) CubeSat, inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing.<\/p>\n<p>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA\u2019s Pandora small satellite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/blogs\/smallsatellites\/2026\/01\/11\/liftoff-of-nasas-newest-planet-observing-satellite\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lifted off<\/a> at 5:44 a.m. PST Sunday, Jan. 11, from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base located on California\u2019s central coast.<\/p>\n<p>During its initial year, Pandora will provide an in-depth study of at least 20 known <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/exoplanets\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">planets orbiting distant stars<\/a> to determine the composition of their atmospheres \u2014 especially the presence of hazes, clouds, and water.<\/p>\n<p>Image credit: SpaceX<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this photo from early January 2026, teams prepare to encapsulate NASA\u2019s Pandora small satellite, NASA-sponsored Star-Planet Activity&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-232275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}