Space mission · United States

How much did NASA's SPHEREx space observatory mission cost?

SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is a NASA near-infrared space observatory that lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base on 11 March 2025 (8:10 p.m. PT) after several delays. It is designed to survey the whole sky four times over a two-year mission in 102 infrared colours, mapping about 450 million galaxies. NBC News and Anadolu Agency put the mission cost at USD 488 million, and NASA said in 2021 that its launch and related costs were about USD 98.8 million.

Reported project cost

$488 million

Cost basis: 2025

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, is situated on a work stand ahead of prelaunch operations at the Astrotech Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. SPHEREx will enter a polar orbit around Earth and create a 3D map of the entire sky, gathering information about millions of galaxies for scientists to study what happened after the big bang, the history
NASA Kennedy Space Center / BAE Systems/Benjamin FryPublic domain

Cost record

How the cost changed

Budgets, contracts and final costs may cover different stages. Each figure keeps its own year and source.

Project record

Timeline

  1. 2025

    Planned completion

    SPHEREx original schedule baseline

  2. 11 March 2025

    Completed

    NBC News

Now make the guess

Could you estimate it without seeing the answer?

BudgetGuessr turns real project costs into a daily estimation challenge.

Play BudgetGuessr

Keep exploring

Related project costs

View all projects