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Forum: Satellites - Robotic Probes
Topic: NASA PUNCH mission to track solar wind

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Message to Edit: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	Originally posted by Robert Pearlman on 03-12-2025 09:10 AM NASA release <blockquote><font size="+0">[b]NASA Launches Mission to Study Sun[/b]</font> NASA's [URL=https://science.nasa.gov/mission/punch/]PUNCH[/URL] (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will study how the Sun's outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind, lifted off at 8:10 p.m. PDT on March 11 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. <center><a href="http://www.collectspace.com/review/nasa_spherex_punch_launch01-lg.jpg" target="AirLock"><img src="http://www.collectspace.com/review/nasa_spherex_punch_launch01.jpg" width="400" height="254" border="0"></a></center> The PUNCH satellites successfully separated about 53 minutes after launch, and ground controllers have established communication with all four PUNCH spacecraft. Now, PUNCH begins a 90-day commissioning period where the four satellites will enter the correct orbital formation, and the instruments will be calibrated as a single "virtual instrument" before the scientists start to analyze images of the solar wind. The mission is designed to operate in a low Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit over the day-night line (also known as the terminator) so the Sun always remains in the same position relative to the spacecraft. <center><a href="http://www.collectspace.com/review/nasa_punch_deploy01-lg.jpg" target="AirLock"><img src="http://www.collectspace.com/review/nasa_punch_deploy01.jpg" width="400" height="225" border="0"></a></center> NASA's PUNCH will make global, 3D observations of the inner solar system and the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, to learn how its mass and energy become the solar wind, a stream of charged particles blowing outward from the Sun in all directions. The mission will explore the formation and evolution of space weather events such as coronal mass ejections, which can create storms of energetic particle radiation that can endanger spacecraft and astronauts. "The space between planets is not an empty void. It's full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth," said Craig DeForest, the mission's principal investigator, at the Southwest Research Institute. "The PUNCH mission is designed to answer basic questions about how stars like our Sun produce stellar winds, and how they give rise to dangerous space weather events right here on Earth."</blockquote>
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