NASA has announced two new missions to better comprehend the sun’s dynamics and the constantly changing space environment. This comes just a day after NASA released the results of the Parker Solar Probe’s latest findings. It is on its journey to the sun.
The missions are known as MUSE and HelioSwarm. They aim at researching the sun’s corona as well as measuring the magnetic field of the solar wind.
Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa’s associate administrator for science, in a statement, said, “MUSE and HelioSwarm will provide new and deeper insight into the solar atmosphere and space weather. These missions not only extend the science of our other heliophysics missions — but they also provide a unique perspective and a novel approach to understanding the mysteries of our star.”
Bart DePontieu of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (LMATC) in California will lead the MUSE mission.
More about the two new NASA missions Muse and HelioSwarm
The Muse mission will seek to improve our understanding of the mechanisms that drive the heating of the Sun’s corona and the eruptions that occur there. They are also at the heart of space weather. According to Nasa, it will provide more information about the physics of the solar atmosphere. The probe will use the multi-slit spectrometer to monitor the Sun’s intense ultraviolet radiation. Also, it will produce the highest resolution photographs of the solar transition area and corona ever captured.
With the Sun entering a new cycle and activity on the surface increasing, the spacecraft will look into the causes of coronal heating and instability, such as flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as learn more about the corona’s basic plasma properties.
The HelioSwarm mission, on the other hand, will be led by Harlan Spence. He is a professor at the University of New Hampshire.
The HelioSwarm mission is a constellation of nine spacecraft. They will take the first multiscale in-space measurements of magnetic field variations and solar wind motions. They are known as solar wind turbulence. Solar winds travel through the heliosphere. Interactions with planetary magnetospheres and disruptions such as coronal mass ejections affect their turbulence, according to Nasa.
Both the missions likewise have a combined budget of $442 million.
Peg Luce is deputy director of the Heliophysics Division, in a statement. Luce said, “The technical innovation of HelioSwarm’s small satellites operating together as a constellation provides the unique ability to investigate turbulence and its evolution in the solar wind.”
