“Each spacecraft was loaded with propellant to match launch mass and subjected to vibration testing in all three axes. The objective was to make the simulated vibrations as true to the conditions of launch as possible,” said Jim Lux, SunRISE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Pre- and post-test functional checks were performed, and all six spacecraft aced them.”
The heliophysics mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as a rideshare aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket, sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.
Solar radio bursts
After launch, the SunRISE satellites will be delivered slightly above geosynchronous orbit (about 22,000 miles, or 35,000 kilometers, in altitude) and deploy their four telescoping antenna booms — each about 10 feet (2.5 meters) long — which form an “X.”
The spacecraft will fly in formation up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart, creating a single large radio telescope. After the SmallSats communicate via NASA’s Deep Space Network, scientists will use a technique called interferometry to combine the observations, creating a single, large radio telescope. This configuration will enable them to detect solar radio bursts and map the Sun’s magnetic field from the outer corona into interplanetary space.
“Solar radio bursts are triggered after vast quantities of energy stored in the Sun’s magnetic field accelerate solar particles to high speeds,” said Sue Lepri, SunRISE principal investigator at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Tracking these events will not only help space agencies mitigate their damaging effects on astronauts and spacecraft but will also add new science to our growing knowledge base of how space weather is generated and propagates throughout the solar system.”
The SunRISE mission will complement other NASA heliophysics missions, such as the agency’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, Parker Solar Probe, and Solar Orbiter, an international cooperative mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA.
More about SunRISE
NASA’s SunRISE is a Mission of Opportunity under the Heliophysics Division of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. These missions are part of the Explorers Program, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The mission’s science investigation is led by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which also provides the science operations center, and the project is managed by JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, which also provides the mission operations center. The SunRISE spacecraft were built by SDL.
To learn more about the SunRISE mission, visit: