NASA selects two missions to unravel the Earth-Sun connection

NASA has selected two missions, Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) and HelioSwarm, for the best understanding of solar dynamics, the Sun-Earth connection, and the ever-changing space environment.

These missions, with no known launch date yet, will provide deeper insights into our universe and offer critical information to help protect astronauts, satellites, and communication signals like the gps.

The mission MUSE It will help scientists understand the forces that drive the heating of the sun’s corona and the flares in that outer region that are the basis of space weather. The mission will offer deeper insights into the physics of the solar atmosphere by using a powerful instrument known as a multislit spectrometer to observe the Sun’s extreme ultraviolet radiation and obtain the highest resolution images ever captured of the solar transition region. and the crown.

The mission will also provide observations complementary to heliophysics research, such as the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Telescope and ground-based observatories.

“MUSE will help us fill crucial gaps in knowledge related to the Sun-Earth connection”, said in a statement Nicola Fox, director of the Division of Heliophysics at the headquarters of the POT. “It will provide more information on space weather and complement a number of other missions within the heliophysics mission fleet.”

The main objective of the mission MUSE is to investigate the causes of coronal heating and instability, such as flares and coronal mass ejections, and to gain insight into the basic properties of the coronal plasma. MUSE will obtain high-resolution images of the evolution of solar flare ribbons in a field of view centered on a large active region of the Sun.

The mission HelioSwarm is a constellation or “swarm” of nine spacecraft that will capture the first multiscale measurements in space of fluctuations in the magnetic field and motions of the solar wind known as solar wind turbulence. The outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun, the heliosphere, encompasses a huge region of the solar system. Solar winds propagate through the heliosphere, and their interactions with planetary magnetospheres and disturbances such as coronal mass ejections affect their turbulence.

The study of solar wind turbulence over large areas requires plasma measurements taken simultaneously from different points in space. HelioSwarm It consists of a core spacecraft and eight small co-orbiting satellites that vary in distance from each other and the core spacecraft. The central spacecraft will maintain radio contact with each small satellite. All radio contact between the swarm and Earth will take place through the central spacecraft and the Deep Space Network of the POT of spaceship communication antennas.

“The technical innovation of the small satellites of HelioSwarm operating together as a constellation provides the unique ability to investigate turbulence and its evolution in the solar wind.” said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division.