NASA Selects Mission to Study Causes of Giant Solar Particle Storms
NASA has selected a new mission focused on how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms or otherwise known as solar particle storms. These storms extend outwards into planetary space. Since Interplanetary space is affected by the sun and understanding can help protect spacecraft and astronauts traveling to the Moon and Mars by providing better information on how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment they must travel through.
NASA has done several missions to study the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe was the first spacecraft to pass through the low solar corona and assessed the structure and dynamics of the Sun’s coronal plasma, magnetic field, and how the energy flow that heats the solar corona and impels the solar wind.
This new mission, called “the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment” (SunRISE), is an array of six CubeSats. The Cubsates work together, operating as one very large radio telescope. NASA awarded $62.6 million contract for the design, build and launch SunRISE targeted for July 1, 2023.
The SunRISE program was selected by NASA in August 2017 as one of two Mission of Opportunity proposals. As part of the selection, an 11-month mission concept study was completed. NASEA approved in February 2019, the continued study of the mission.
“We are so pleased to add a new mission to our fleet of spacecraft that help us better understand the Sun, as well as how our star influences the space environment between planets,” said Nicky Fox, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “The more we know about how the Sun erupts with space weather events, the more we can mitigate their effects on spacecraft and astronauts.”
The SunRISE cubesats
The mission design relies on (6)six solar-powered CubeSats. Each cubesat is about the size of a toaster oven. (cubesats come in multiples of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm cubic units). In order to simultaneously observe radio images of low-frequency emission from solar activity and share them via NASA’s Deep Space Network the cube sat constellation will need to work collectively. The constellation of CubeSats would be positioned within 6 miles of each other, above Earth’s atmosphere.
If the satellites are too close to the Earth’s atmosphere, the radio signals SunRISE will be too small not be able to detect the Parker Space Probe. 3D maps to pinpoint where giant particle bursts originate on the Sun and how they evolve as they expand outward into space. The six individual spacecraft will also work together to map the pattern of magnetic field lines extending from the Sun into interplanetary space.
Missions of Opportunity are part of the Explorers Program, which is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space dating back to the beginning of NASA.
