Space telescope SPHEREx Begins Initial Operation

Seoul: The SPHEREx -- a space telescope jointly developed by South Korea and the US -- has entered an initial operation stage following its successful launch Wednesday, Seoul's aerospace agency said.

The SPHEREx was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday (Korea time) on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, according to the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA), Yonhap news agency.

The SPHEREx observatory was detached from the rocket about three minutes after the launch and succeeded in communicating with Svalbard Ground Station in Norway, one of the NASA near space networks, at 1:30 p.m., it said.

The 300 billion won ($488 million) telescope will survey the whole sky over its two-year mission.