NASA gives nod of approval to two heliophysics missions that will explore Sun, space weather

NASA has said yes to two heliophysics missions to explore the Sun and will also observe the system that drives space weather near Earth. As per a statement by NASA, the Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon Mission (EUVUST) and Electroject Zeeman Imaging Explorere (EZIE) will help scientists understand the Sun and Earth as an interconnected system. Scientists are of the opinion that understanding the physics that drive solar wind and solar explosions could in the future help them predict events, which in turn can impact human technology as well as explorers in space.“With these new missions, we’re expanding how we study the Sun, space, and Earth as an interconnected system,” said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington said in a statement.[caption id="attachment_9169161" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

From the International Space Station’s orbit 269 miles above the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia, this nighttime photograph captures the aurora australis, or "southern lights." Russia's Soyuz MS-12 crew ship is in the foreground and Progress 72 resupply ship in the background.

Credits: NASA[/caption]

The Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon

The EUVST Mission is led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in partnership with other international organisations. The EUVST is targeting a launch date in 2026. It is a solar telescope that will study how the sun's atmosphere releases solar wind and drives eruptions of solar material.NASA's hardware contributions to the mission include an intensified UV detector and support electronics, spectrograph components, a guide telescope, software and a slip-jaw imaging system to provide context for the spectrographic measurement.NASA's budget to the whole mission is $55 million and the principal investigator for the NASA contribution to EUVST is Harry Warren at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.

The Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer

The EZIE mission is made up of three Cubesats which will study electric currents in Earth's atmosphere linking aurora to the Earth's magnetosphere.According to NOAA, the magnetosphere is the region of space surrounding Earth where the dominant magnetic field is the magnetic field of Earth, rather than the magnetic field of interplanetary space. The magnetosphere is formed by the interaction of the solar wind with Earth's magnetic field.The total budget for the EZIE mission is $53.3 million and is slated to launch in June 2024. The principal investigator for the mission is Jeng-Hwa (Sam) Yee at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.