As the agency's SPHEREx space telescope and PUNCH solar mission rode toward their orbital stations at 10:09 p.m. EST (0209 March 9 GMT), members of mission control appeared elated, onlookers who caught a peek at the liftoff cheered, and the scientists who built these missions exuded a blend of relief and excitement.

A NASA telescope was launched into space from California on Tuesday for a mission to explore the origins of the universe and to scour the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, a key ingredient for life.

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.

NASA has launched a $488m infra-red mission to map the distribution of galaxies and study cosmic inflation. The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission was launched yesterday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California by a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket.

The postponement, driven primarily by thick clouds, was the second scrub of the flight since an issue with the rocket on Saturday night.

NASA and SpaceX on Monday will launch its SPHEREx and PUNCH spacecraft missions tasked to create a three-dimensional map of hundreds of millions of galaxies in order to better understand our known universe.

The spacecraft, SPHEREx and PUNCH, had been expected to launch on a SpaceX rocket on Saturday. Two NASA missions will have to wait longer for a launch aboard a single rocket. Both aim to unravel mysteries about the universe — one by peering far from Earth,

Watch live as NASA launches the SPHEREx telescope and PUNCH mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to explore the universe and the sun. SPHEREx will create a 3D all-sky map of 450 million galaxies, while PUNCH will use small satellites to study the sun’s impact on space weather and Earth’s communications.