NASA Probe Scheduled To Launch October 19
The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic
interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the
cold expanse of space is ready for launch October 19. The two-year
mission will begin from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall
Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX, the
spacecraft will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth
to investigate and capture images of processes taking place at the
farthest reaches of the solar system. Known as the interstellar
boundary, this region marks where the solar system meets
interstellar space.
"The interstellar boundary regions are critical because they
shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays,
which otherwise would penetrate into Earth's orbit and make human
spaceflight much more dangerous," said David J. McComas, IBEX
principal investigator and senior executive director of the Space
Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research
Institute in San Antonio.
The story of the outer solar system began to unfold when the
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts left the inner solar system and
headed out toward the boundary between our solar system and
interstellar space.
"The Voyager spacecraft are making fascinating observations of
the local conditions at two points beyond the termination shock
that show totally unexpected results and challenge many of our
notions about this important region," said McComas.
Other spacecraft have continued the exploration of the
interstellar boundary region. Recently, a pair of NASA sun-focused
satellites, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory mission,
detected a higher-energy version of the particles IBEX will observe
in the heliosphere. The heliosphere is an area that contains the
solar wind. It stretches from the sun to a distance several times
the orbit of Pluto.
IBEX is poised to thoroughly map this interstellar boundary
region of the solar system. The images will allow scientists to
understand the global interaction between our sun and the galaxy
for the very first time.
IBEX will be launched aboard a Pegasus rocket dropped from under
the wing of an L-1011 aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean. The
Pegasus will carry the spacecraft approximately 130 miles above
Earth and place it in orbit.
"What makes the IBEX mission unique is that it has an extra kick
during launch," said Willis Jenkins, IBEX program executive at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "An extra solid-state motor pushes the
spacecraft further out of low-Earth orbit where the Pegasus launch
vehicle leaves it."
The IBEX mission is the next in NASA's series of low-cost,
rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was
developed by Southwest Research Institute with national and
international partner participation.