US Space agency, NASA has selected two new missions-PUNCH and TRACERS to advance our understanding of the Sun and its dynamic effects on space.
- Launch date for the two missions is no later than August 2022.
- One of the selected missions will study how the Sun drives particles and energy into the solar system and a second will study Earth’s response.
- The Sun generates a vast outpouring of solar particles known as the solar wind, which can create a dynamic system of radiation in space called space weather. Near Earth, where such particles interact with our planet’s magnetic field, the space weather system can lead to profound impacts on human interests, such as astronauts’ safety, radio communications, GPS signals, and utility grids on the ground.
- The more we understand what drives space weather and its interaction with the Earth and lunar systems, the more we can mitigate its effects.
About PUNCH
- The PUNC (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission will focus directly on the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, and how it generates the solar wind.
- Composed of four suitcase-sized satellites, PUNCH will image and track the solar wind as it leaves the Sun.
- The spacecraft also will track coronal mass ejections – large eruptions of solar material that can drive large space weather events near Earth – to better understand their evolution and develop new techniques for predicting such eruptions.
- These observations will enhance national and international research by other NASA missions such as Parker Solar Probe, and the upcoming ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA Solar Orbiter, due to launch in 2020. PUNCH will be able to image, in real time, the structures in the solar atmosphere that these missions encounter by blocking out the bright light of the Sun and examining the much fainter atmosphere.
About the TRACERS
- The second mission is Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS.
- The TRACERS investigation was partially selected as a NASA-launched rideshare mission, meaning it will be launched as a secondary payload with PUNCH.
- TRACERS will observe particles and fields at the Earth’s northern magnetic cusp region – the region encircling Earth’s pole, where our planet’s magnetic field lines curve down toward Earth. Here, the field lines guide particles from the boundary between Earth’s magnetic field and interplanetary space down into the atmosphere.
- TRACERS’ unique measurements will help with NASA’s mission to safeguard our technology and astronauts in space. (Courtesy: NASA)
