Posted by Courtney E. Howard
WASHINGTON, 17 Oct. 2011. NASA engineers, in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), are scheduled to begin development and testing of two science instruments for the ESA's new Solar Orbiter mission. NASA is providing an imager and sensor, valued at $80 million, as well as an expendable launch vehicle for the planned launch in 2017 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The project will help scientists predict space weather and sun storms, which can interfere with communications between ground controllers and satellites and with airplane pilots.
The Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) will provide revolutionary measurements to pinpoint coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are space weather events with violent solar eruptions that travel from 60 miles per second to more than 2,000 miles per second with masses greater than a few billion tons. Russell Howard from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington is principal investigator.
The Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS) will measure density, velocity, and temperature of the solar wind. Stefano Livi from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio is principal investigator.
The European-led project will operate approximately 21 million miles from the sun's surface, near the orbit of Mercury and roughly 25 percent of the distance from the sun to the Earth, at its closest approach. The vantage point will enhance the ability to forecast space weather, which produces disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupt power lines, and cause widespread blackouts. Such sun storms can interfere with communications between ground controllers and satellites and with airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from the storms also can disrupt cell phone service.
"This collaboration will create a new chapter in heliophysics research and continue a strong partnership with the international science community to complement future robotic and human exploration activities," says Barbara Giles, director for NASA's heliophysics division in Washington.
Solar Orbiter will be close enough to the sun to sample solar wind shortly after the wind has been ejected from the sun's surface. Additionally, the spacecraft will observe the process that accelerates wind on the sun's surface.
The spacecraft's elliptical orbit will enable it to follow the star's rotation, and to observe specific areas for longer than is currently possible.
The NASA investigations for Solar Orbiter are part of NASA's Living with a Star Program, managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.