SpaceX / NASA IXPE

IXPE will take about a month to commission on-orbit and has a planned usable life of 2 years after that, but with no on-board consumables to maintain itself it is very likely to live on well past that timeframe.

Close-up of the Falcon 9 payload fairing artwork for IXPE.

IXPE will be placed in an equatorial, 540 x 540 kilometer, low Earth orbit after its ascent to space aboard Falcon 9.

SpaceX and NASA are targeting Thursday, December 9th at 1:00 a.m. ET for the launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission.

IXPE will be SpaceX's fifth launch for NASA's Launch Services Program, which curates NASA's science and robotic missions with rides to space via commercial launch vehicles.