A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » News
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Successful launch of THEMIS satellites positions NASA mission to answer key questions about Earth's auroras (Forwarded)



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old February 19th 07, 05:33 AM posted to sci.space.news
Andrew Yee[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,209
Default Successful launch of THEMIS satellites positions NASA mission to answer key questions about Earth's auroras (Forwarded)

Media Relations
University of California-Berkeley

Media Contacts:
Robert Sanders
(510) 643-6998, (510) 642-3734

18 February 2007

Successful launch of UC Berkeley's THEMIS satellites positions NASA mission
to answer key questions about Earth's auroras

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations

BERKELEY -- After a picture-perfect launch into clear, blue skies at 6:01
p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 17, the five THEMIS probes are healthy and in their
expected orbits, according to University of California, Berkeley, physicist
and mission principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos.

"Based on telemetry received by UC Berkeley's ground station, they look
really good," he said.

THEMIS, which stands for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions
during Substorms, is NASA's first five-satellite mission and the first to
investigate a key mystery surrounding the auroras, or Northern and Southern
lights: When, where and how are they triggered?

"The THEMIS mission will make a breakthrough in our understanding of how
Earth's magnetosphere stores and releases energy from the sun and also will
demonstrate the tremendous potential that constellation missions have for
space exploration," said Angelopoulos.

The satellites won't be in a position to answer this question until next
winter, because they must coast into the proper orbits to allow them to
detect electrical activity in space and link this to auroral outbursts via a
network of 20 ground observatories spanning Canada and Alaska. Until then,
according to David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist from NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, THEMIS will collect data that will help improve our
understanding of the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth and will
show how energy from the sun enters the Earth's magnetic field on the
daytime side and is funneled to the nighttime side to create auroras.

The findings from the mission may help protect commercial satellites and
humans in space from the adverse effects of particle radiation.

As of 10 p.m. EST Saturday, however, the probes were coasting in Earth orbit
as UC Berkeley's Mission Operations Center ran them through tests to make
sure they survived the launch successfully. Instrument scientists will turn
on and characterize the instruments during the next 30 days, and the center
will then assign each spacecraft a target orbit within the THEMIS
constellation based on its performance. Mission operators will direct the
spacecraft to their final orbits in mid-September so that, during the
winter, they will light up in the Earth's shadow every 4 days to pinpoint
the position of auroral substorm initiations.

The THEMIS launch, which was the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services
Program at the Kennedy Space Center, was aboard a Delta II rocket from Pad
17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The United Launch Alliance of
Denver provided launch service

The spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle approximately 73 minutes
after liftoff. By 8:07 p.m. EST, after the five probes had flown over UC
Berkeley's ground-based radio antenna, mission operators at UC Berkeley
commanded and received signals from all five spacecraft, confirming that
they had separated properly from the carousel that Swales Aerospace had
designed to fling them into orbit.

While only two were confirmed healthy on the constellation's first flight
over the ground antenna, the other three were confirmed healthy on the
second flyover.

THEMIS is an Explorer mission, which is managed at Goddard by the Explorer
Program Office at Goddard.

"I am proud to manage the fifth medium class mission of the Explorer
Program," said NASA's Willis S. Jenkins, the THEMIS program executive. "As
we seek the answer to a compelling scientific question in geospace physics,
we are keeping up the tradition that began with Explorer I."

The Space Sciences Laboratory at the UC Berkeley is responsible for project
management, space and ground-based instruments, mission integration, mission
operations and science. Swales Aerospace of Beltsville, Md., built the
THEMIS probes. THEMIS is an international project conducted in partnership
with Germany, France, Austria and Canada.

For more information about the THEMIS mission and imagery, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/themis
or go to the THEMIS mission Web site,
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis/

Also see the UC Berkeley press release about the mission,
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...7_themis.shtml
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
NASA THEMIS mission adds five spacecraft to the Sun-Earth flotilla (Forwarded) Andrew Yee[_1_] News 0 February 16th 07 08:02 PM
NASA THEMIS mission adds five spacecraft to the Sun-Earth flotilla(Forwarded) Andrew Yee Astronomy Misc 0 February 16th 07 07:59 PM
Nuclear-Powered Mission to Neptune Could Answer Questions About Planetary Formation [email protected] Astronomy Misc 2 December 10th 04 04:19 PM
Nuclear-Powered Mission to Neptune Could Answer Questions About Planetary Formation [email protected] News 0 December 10th 04 01:37 AM
Repost: Questions NASA Avoids and Refuses to Answer ~A~ Astronomy Misc 4 January 12th 04 11:50 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:37 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.