NASA’s SunRISE Mission Targets No Earlier Than Mid-2027 Launch
NASA Science ·
NASA’s SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will launch no earlier than mid-2027. The heliophysics mission will hitch a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a rideshare with a payload sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.  The mission’s six toaster-oven-size […] The post NASA’s SunRISE Mission Targets No Earlier Than Mid-2027 Launch appeared first on NASA Science .
NASA’s SunRISE mission is comprised of six small satellites that will fly in formation, as depicted in part in this artist’s concept. They will work as one large radio telescope to track the solar radio bursts generated by energetic particle events that may pose a hazard to satellites and astronauts. Space Dynamics Laboratory
NASA’s SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will launch no earlier than mid-2027. The heliophysics mission will hitch a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a rideshare with a payload sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.
The mission’s six toaster-oven-size small satellites, or SmallSats, will operate as one giant radio dish slightly above geosynchronous orbit, which is about 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) in altitude, and will track the rumbles of radio bursts coming from within the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona. The bursts are generated by accelerated particles leaving the Sun. The solar radio waves arrive at Earth before the solar energetic particles. In extreme cases, solar particle events can damage satellites and affect astronauts. Using SunRISE to track the radio waves could improve prediction and mitigation efforts.
The SmallSats have completed assembly and testing at Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, where they will be stored until they are shipped to Florida shortly before launch.
NASA’s SunRISE is a Mission of Opportunity under the Heliophysics Division of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. These missions are part of the Explorers Program, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The mission’s science investigation is led by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which also provides the science operations center, and the project is managed by JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, which also provides the mission operations center.
The post NASA’s SunRISE Mission Targets No Earlier Than Mid-2027 Launch appeared first on NASA Science .