The Euclid space telescope will launch from Kennedy Space Center this Saturday, July 1. Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Chuck Bennett, Professor Brice Ménard, and Associate Research Scientist Graeme Addison are part of the Euclid mission’s science team. Euclid will survey galaxies over the sky to determine the nature of the dark universe. This includes dark energy, which is currently driving an accelerated expansion of the universe, and dark matter, which is not made of atoms and does not interact with light. The central science goal of Euclid is to characterize and understand dark energy and dark matter more completely. Euclid is a European Space Agency mission with important contributions from NASA, including infrared detectors and data analysis.

The $1.6 billion spacecraft will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:11 AM on Saturday, July 1, 2023 and will be streamed live on NASA TV starting 40 minutes before. After launch, Euclid will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point before it begins its 3D geometric survey of about one-third of the known universe.