NASA's Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), the first
twin-spacecraft mission designed to explore our planet's radiation belts,
launched into the predawn skies at 4:05a.m. EDT Thursday from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station, Fla.
"Scientists will learn in unprecedented detail how
the radiation belts are populated with charged particles, what causes them to
change and how these processes affect the upper reaches of the atmosphere
around Earth," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. "The
information collected from these probes will benefit the public by allowing us
to better protect our satellites and understand how space weather affects
communications and technology on Earth."
The two satellites, each weighing just less than 1,500
pounds, comprise the first dual-spacecraft mission specifically created to
investigate this hazardous regions of near-Earth space, known as the radiation
belts. These two belts, named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, encircle
the planet and are filled with highly charged particles. The belts are affected
by solar storms and coronal mass ejections and sometimes swell dramatically.
When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications, GPS satellites and
human spaceflight.
"We have never before sent such comprehensive and
high-quality instruments to study high radiation regions of space," said
Barry Mauk, RBSP project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied
Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "RBSP was crafted to help us learn
more about, and ultimately predict, the response of the radiation belts to
solar inputs."
The hardy RBSP satellites will spend the next 2 years
looping through every part of both Van Allen belts. By having two spacecraft in
different regions of the belts at the same time, scientists finally will be
able to gather data from within the belts themselves, learning how they change
over space and time. Designers fortified RBSP with special protective plating and
rugged electronics to operate and survive within this punishing region of space
that other spacecraft avoid. In addition, a space weather broadcast will
transmit selected data from those instruments around the clock, giving
researchers a check on current conditions near Earth.
"The excitement of seeing the spacecraft in orbit
and beginning to perform science measurements is like no other thrill,"
said Richard Fitzgerald, RBSP project manager at APL. "The entire RBSP
team, from across every organization, worked together to produce an amazing
pair of spacecraft."
RBSP was lifted into orbit aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket
from Space Launch Complex-41, as the rocket's plume lit the dark skies over the
Florida coast. The first RBSP spacecraft is scheduled to separate from the
Atlas rocket's Centaur booster 1 hour, 18 minutes, 52 seconds after launch. The
second RBSP spacecraft is set to follow 12 minutes, 14 seconds later. Mission
controllers using APL's 60-foot satellite dish will establish radio contact
with each probe immediately after separation.
During the next 60 days, operators will power up all
flight systems and science instruments and deploy long antenna booms, two of
which are more than 54 yards long. Data about the particles that swirl through
the belts, and the fields and waves that transport them, will be gathered by
five instrument suites designed and operated by teams at the New Jersey
Institute of Technology in Newark; the University of Iowa in Iowa City;
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; and the University of New Hampshire in
Durham; and the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va. The data will
be analyzed by scientists across the nation almost immediately.
RBSP is the second mission in NASA's Living With a Star
(LWS) program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that
directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by the agency's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. APL built the RBSP spacecraft and will manage
the mission for NASA. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy is responsible
for launch management. United Launch Alliance provided the Atlas V launch
service.
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