Jul 28 2017

From The Space Library

RELEASE 17-064 NASA Selects Proposals to Study Sun, Space Environment

NASA has selected nine proposals under its Explorers Program that will return transformational science about the Sun and space environment and fill science gaps between the agency’s larger missions; eight for focused scientific investigations and one for technological development of instrumentation.

The broad scope of the investigations illustrates the many vital and specialized research areas that must be explored simultaneously in the area of heliophysics, which is the study of how the Sun affects space and the space environment of planets.

“The Explorers Program seeks innovative ideas for small and cost-constrained missions that can help unravel the mysteries of the Universe,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division and the selection official. “These missions absolutely meet that standard with proposals to solve mysteries about the Sun’s corona, the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere, and the solar wind.”

Under the selected proposals, five Heliophysics Small Explorer missions and two Explorer Missions of Opportunity Small Complete Missions (SCM), concept studies will be conducted that span a broad range of investigations focusing on terrestrial weather in the near-Earth space environment; magnetic energy; solar wind; and heating and energy released in the solar atmosphere.

The proposals were selected based on potential science value and feasibility of development plans. Small Explorer mission costs are capped at $165 million each, and Mission of Opportunity costs are capped at $55 million each.

Each Heliophysics Small Explorer mission will receive $1.25 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. The selected proposals are:

Mechanisms of Energetic Mass Ejection – eXplorer (MEME-X)

• MEME-X will map the universal physical processes of the lower geospace system that control the mass flux through the upper atmosphere to space potentially transforming our understanding of how ions leave Earth’s atmosphere.
• Principal investigator: Thomas Moore at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI)

• FOXSI is a solar-dedicated, direct-imaging, Hard X-Ray telescope that would detect hot plasma and energetic electrons in and near energy release sites in the solar corona.
• Principal investigator: Steven Christe at Goddard

Multi-Slit Solar Explorer (MUSE)

• MUSE will provide data to advance understanding of the difficult problems of mechanisms responsible for energy release in the corona and the dynamics of the solar atmosphere.
• Principal investigator: Ted Tarbell at Lockheed Martin Inc. in Palo Alto, California

Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS)

• TRACERS will fill a fundamental gap in our knowledge of the global variability in magnetopause reconnection by providing an abundant, well targeted set of new and unique in situ measurements.
• Principal investigator: Craig Kletzing at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City

Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH)

• PUNCH will advance our understanding of how coronal structures fuel the ambient solar wind with mass and energy, and the dynamic evolution of transient structures in the young solar wind (near the source surface).
• Principal investigator: Craig DeForest at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado

Each Mission of Opportunity (SCM will receive $400,000 to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. The selected proposals are:

Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE)

• SunRISE will consist of a constellation of cubesats operating as a synthetic aperture radio telescope to address the critical heliophysics problems of how solar energetic particles are accelerated and released into interplanetary space.
• Principal investigator: Justin Kasper at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor

Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE)

• AWE will investigate how atmospheric gravity waves, including those generated by terrestrial weather, impact the transport of energy and momentum from the lower atmosphere into near-Earth space, a fundamental question in Heliophysics.
• Principal investigator: Michael Taylor at Utah State University Research Foundation in Logan

A Partner Mission of Opportunity (PMO) proposal has been selected for components and scientific analysis for three in situ payload instruments aboard the Turbulence Heating ObserveR (THOR) mission – one of four proposed missions currently under consideration by ESA (European Space Agency). After ESA’s final selection, work will begin on implementation of the PMO only if THOR is selected.

The chosen PMO is:

U.S. Contributions to the THOR mission (THOR-US)

• THOR-US will provide components and scientific analysis for an investigation into how plasma is heated and accelerated by the dissipation of turbulent fluctuations through kinetic processes. The concept study for THOR-US was conducted prior to its selection for NASA’s Explorer Program, so the team is positioned to move into the detailed design phase if its host mission is selected.
• Principal investigator: Harald Kucharek at University of New Hampshire in Durham

One Mission of Opportunity SCM received highly favorable review for scientific and scientific implementation merit, but was deemed to require more technological development of the instrument’s innovative optical design before further consideration of an implementation concept. This proposal is offered funding for a continued technology development study. The SCM chosen for a technology development investigation is:

COronal Spectrographic Imager in the Extreme ultraviolet (COSIE)

• COSIE would provide a missing link between the physics of the low corona and that of the heliosphere with a unique and innovative instrument based on the International Space Station.
• Principal investigator: Leon Golub at the Smithsonian Institution/Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Explorers Program is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the agency’s astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Since the Explorer 1 launch in 1958, which discovered Earth’s radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions that led to Nobel Prizes for their investigators.

The program is managed by Goddard for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, which conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and universe.

RELEASE 17-066 NASA's Randy Bresnik, Crewmates Arrive at International Space Station

After a six-hour spaceflight, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency) arrived at the International Space Station at 5:54 p.m. EDT Friday to continue important scientific research in the orbiting laboratory.

The three crewmates launched aboard the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:41 a.m. (9:41 p.m. Baikonur time), orbited Earth four times, and docked at the space station. Following standard pressurization and leak checks, the hatches between the spacecraft and station will be opened.

The arrival of Bresnik, Ryazanskiy and Nespoli restored the station's crew to six people, which includes Expedition 52 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA. The new Expedition 52 crew members will spend more than four months conducting approximately 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

The newly-expanded Expedition 52 crew soon will conduct new science investigations arriving on SpaceX’s 12th NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission targeted to launch in August. Investigations the crew will work on include a study developed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation of the pathology of Parkinson’s disease to aid in the development of therapies for patients on Earth. The crew will use the special nature of microgravity in a new lung tissue study to advance understanding of how stem cells work and pave the way for further use of the microgravity environment in stem cell research. Expedition astronauts also will assemble and deploy a microsatellite investigation seeking to validate the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in time-sensitive situations such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

During their expedition, the crew members also are scheduled to receive an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and a Russian Progress resupply mission, each delivering several tons of food, fuel, supplies and research such as an investigation to demonstrate the merits of manufacturing fiber optic filaments in microgravity.

Whitson, Fischer and Yurchikhin are scheduled to remain aboard the station until September. Shortly after their departure, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin will join the Expedition 53 crew. Bresnik, Ryazanskiy and Nespoli are scheduled to return in December.

For more than 16 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 1,900 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.