Solar Flare Alert System Helps NASA Rocket Team Decide When to Launch
NASA Science ·
For the first time, scientists have used NASA sounding rockets to study a solar flare in progress, thanks to a new flare alert system that told the team when to launch. Solar flares accelerate particles and release energy into the solar system, which can affect Earth and its technologies. Sounding rockets are a relatively fast, […] The post Solar Flare Alert System Helps NASA Rocket Team Decide When to Launch appeared first on NASA Science .
For the first time, scientists have used NASA sounding rockets to study a solar flare in progress, thanks to a new flare alert system that told the team when to launch.
A NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket carries the fifth iteration of the Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI-5) into the skies above Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska, at 11:23 a.m. local time on May 14, 2026. The FOXSI-5 instrument successfully observed three small solar flares during the flight. Poker Flat Research Range
Solar flares accelerate particles and release energy into the solar system, which can affect Earth and its technologies.
Sounding rockets are a relatively fast, inexpensive way to study light from solar flares that’s absorbed by our atmosphere. However, they only have about five minutes to observe before falling back to Earth, and solar flares can fade just as quickly. Launching a rocket to study a flare is a gamble, because typical flare alert systems can’t tell whether the flare will still be there when the rocket reaches space.
To solve this problem, a team developed a flare alert system that pinpoints a flare’s location and predicts how long it will last within minutes of its detection by spacecraft. This helped their team and another coordinate the launch of two rockets from Alaska in April 2024 and successfully study a solar flare before it disappeared. In May 2026, the team used an enhanced version of the alert system to launch another rocket that observed three flares.
Described in a paper published Nov. 4 in The Astrophysical Journal, the flare alert system analyzes X-ray and ultraviolet emission from active regions — magnetically complex areas on the Sun that produce solar flares — as observed by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), and ground-based observatories.
The team continues to improve the system under a NASA Early Career Investigator Program grant, and the same early warning could support future rocket campaigns, solar observatories, and space weather forecasting.
by Vanessa Thomas NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The post Solar Flare Alert System Helps NASA Rocket Team Decide When to Launch appeared first on NASA Science .