By Mary O’KEEFE

April 22 will be an Earth Day Michael Thelen will not soon forget. 

Thelen is the flight system manager for the SPHEREx Project at NASA’s  Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and on Earth Day he and the team from SPHEREx rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). 

“It’s a misconception that companies [ringing ]the bell at the New York Stock Exchange have to be companies already associated with the [Exchange]. It turns out [the bell ringing] can also be used to recognize events that are noteworthy,” Thelen said. 

And to state SPHEREx is noteworthy would be an understatement. 

SPHEREx launched on March 11 from Vandenberg Space Force Base on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and it is now collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way. The goals are to improve our understanding of how the universe evolved and search for key ingredients for life in our galaxy. 

Ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange was not just a bucket list wish of Thelen’s, but was an amazing way to share this project with the world. Thelen is a mechanical engineer and loves his career; however, he also has a degree in business and studied entrepreneurial studies and finance. 

“I’ve always been drawn to the business aspect of things and the stock market,” he said. He is someone who watches the opening and closing bells.

“It turns out the closing bell is actually more heavily watched than the opening bell,” he said.

New York is home to the largest stock exchange in the world with an equity market capitalization of just below 32 trillion dollars as of March 2025. It can trace its origins to the Buttonwood Agreement signed by 24 stockbrokers on May 17, 1792, as a response to the first financial panic in the young nation. Although the Buttonwood Agreement marks the official founding of the NYSE, the Exchange traces its roots back to the 1600s and the foundation of the U.S. Capital Markets, according to the www.nyse.com.

“In 1624, the Dutch founded New Amsterdam on the southern end of Manhattan and built a stockade from which the street derives its name – running east from what is now Broadway downhill to the East River. The Compromise of 1790 cemented Wall Street’s role as the nation’s financial capital. The agreement allowed Alexander Hamilton, the United States’ first Secretary of the Treasury, to implement his fiscal policy of paying Revolutionary War debt using federally issued bonds. Hamilton’s economic and financial vision included federal assumption of the debt from the Revolutionary War, the creation of a central bank, and support for indigenous manufacturing,” according to www.nyse.com.

NYSE has seen some of the most noteworthy advances in America, not just financially but scientifically as well – which is why NASA’s SPHEREx fits perfectly with the Exchange.

“The [ringing of the closing bell] is something I’ve been interested in for a long time,” Thelen said. 

He has been with JPL for 29 years and has worked several missions. He had tried to get other missions to New York to ring the bell but was not successful; however, when SPHEREx landed he reached out to the NYSE and he and his team were invited to ring the closing bell. 

“This time that dream inside me continued and I persisted with [pursuing the] desire to ring the bell. I found that with SPEREx [there was] a compelling story and one that would be attractive to the public,” he said. 

The event was a little overwhelming; people don’t just ring the bell.

“In fact it was a grand event ringing this bell,” he said. “There were a lot of people at the New York Stock Exchange … a lot of people watching and people coming up to me afterward and asking for my signature, and wanting their picture [taken] with me, all with a newfound understanding of SPHEREx. With that all being said, one of the most satisfying aspects to this event is to see a recognition of the accomplishments of the entire SPHEREx team, and have the SPHEREx name become known by so many just in advance of collecting its science.” 

He and his team were even recognized while they were at dinner. This was a unique way of sharing with the public the science NASA and JPL are doing. 

And that is what Thelen had hoped would happen – that ringing the closing bell would help with science outreach and was a way to bring recognition to the team that works so hard to create these world-changing missions at NASA/JPL. 

Next week CVW will share information on the SPHEREx Project.