SunRISE becomes new NASA mission to study Giant Solar Particle Storms

by Lee Kanayama

NASA announced they have selected the proposed Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission to study how the Sun creates and releases Giant Solar Particle Storms. This mission will further aid scientists to understand how the Solar System works. It will also help protect future astronauts from Solar Storms while going to the Moon or Mars.

The SunRise mission was one of two missions chosen by NASA in August of 2017, for the Mission of Opportunity program as apart of the Explorers Program, to conduct an 11-month concept study. And in February of 2019, NASA approved an extra year of formulation study for the program. It was awarded in March of 2020, $62.6 million to design, build, and launch the SunRISE mission. It has a NET launch date of July 1, 2023.

The mission is led by Justin Kasper at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It is also managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“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.”

SunRISE is a mission that is comprised of 6 CubeSats using the 6U configuration. The mission only requires 5 but uses 6 as redundancy.

SunRISE is proposed to launch as a rideshare mission on a commercial satellite built by Maxar. It will likely launch on a commercial rocket. Attached by a Payload Orbital Delivery System (PODS), it will deploy the 6 CubeSats in a Geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO). It will then be stationed about 10 Kilometers apart. Then it will be placed in a passive formation and will drift in the GEO. Once it is in operation it will be operated by JPL for a 12-month mission.

This mission is possible by the success of the Mars Cube One (MarCO) and the DARPA High-Frequency Research (DHFR). These missions demonstrated technologies that will be used on the SunRISE mission and made technologies a low-cost, low-risk option for the mission. An example is software-defined radios, as well as GPS on CubeSats.

The CubeSats will be used as one very large radio telescope and will use radio images of low-frequency emission from solar activity. They will then send down the information via the Deep Space Network.

Together they will be able to create a 3D map to pinpoint the location a giant particle burst originated on the sun, then how it evolved as they expanded heading into space. The CubeSats will also be used, for the first time, to map the pattern of magnetic field lines reaching the from the Sun to interplanetary space.

The mission will study also apart of the sun’s spectrum that can’t be seen on earth due to the ionosphere. It will also help provide information that Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, and the ground-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope can’t get.

JPL image of a SunRISE spacecraft

During the 12 month mission, the mission will have a near-continuous collection of data. But there will be brief interruptions for telecommunications, orbital corrections, and reaction wheel desaturation.

During the data downlink, it will also send corrections to lower the risk of collision while keeping in formation. It will have data flow from the spacecraft, to the DSN, JPL Mission Operation Center (MOC), to the University of Michigan Science Operations Center, and the Space Physics Data Facility The CubeSats will use a DH-GNSS receiver, GNSS antennas, and deployable dipole antennas.

Studying solar storms can allow scientists to predict how and when they form, data that can later be used to help better protect astronauts from dangerous solar radiation. It can help protect the spacecraft in orbit from damaging its internals from solar radiation.

As it was picked under the Mission of Opportunity it is apart of the Explorers Program. It is NASA’s longest-lasting program as it had its first launch in January of 1958, with the US’s first satellite. Over the years it became a frequent, low-cost program to launch missions to study heliophysics and astrophysics science.

The mission before SunRISE under the Mission of Opportunity is the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE). It will launch in 2022 and be placed on the International Space Station.

This NASA’s 2nd contract awarded after most of the NASA facility being placed under a Stage 3 or Stage 4 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The other contract awarded was the Dragon XL contract for the Lunar Gateway resupply missions. All non-essential missions are on hold as the Stage 4 is underway

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