NASA’s Pandora small satellite, and NASA-sponsored Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), and Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT) CubeSat, are ready to be encapsulated inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing in this early January 2026 photo.

Pandora and the CubeSats launched Sunday,

Jan. 11

, from Vandenberg Space Force Base located on California’s central coast.