NASA launches IBEX mission to outer solar system.October 30, 2008 -
NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission, or IBEX, successfully launched from Kwajalein Atoll in Pacific Ocean. IBEX will build image of outer boundary of solar system from impacts on spacecraft by high-speed particles called energetic neutral atoms. Particles are created when 1-million mph solar wind blows out in all directions from sun and plows into gas of interstellar space. Region is important to study because it shields dangerous cosmic rays that would flood space around Earth.
NASA Launches IBEX Mission to Outer Solar System |
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NASA
NASA Ames Reseach Center
Moffett Field, CA, 94035
USA
Press release date: October 19, 2008
GREENBELT, Md., Oct. 19 /-- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission, or IBEX, successfully launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean at 1:47 p.m. EDT, Sunday. IBEX will be the first spacecraft to image and map dynamic interactions taking place in the outer solar system.
The spacecraft separated from the third stage of its Pegasus launch vehicle at 1:53 p.m. and immediately began powering up components necessary to control onboard systems. The operations team is continuing to check out spacecraft subsystems.
"After a 45-day orbit raising and spacecraft checkout period, the spacecraft will start its exciting science mission," said IBEX mission manager Greg Frazier of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Just as an impressionist artist makes an image from countless tiny strokes of paint, IBEX will build an image of the outer boundary of the solar system from impacts on the spacecraft by high-speed particles called energetic neutral atoms. These particles are created in the boundary region when the 1- million mph solar wind blows out in all directions from the sun and plows into the gas of interstellar space. This region is important to study because it shields many of the dangerous cosmic rays that would flood the space around Earth.
"No one has seen an image of the interaction at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind collides with interstellar space," said IBEX Principal Investigator David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We know we're going to be surprised. It's a little like getting the first weather satellite images. Prior to that, you had to infer the global weather patterns from a limited number of local weather stations. But with the weather satellite images, you could see the hurricanes forming and the fronts developing and moving across the country."
IBEX is the latest in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. The Southwest Research Institute developed the IBEX mission with a team of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the IBEX mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ibex
CONTACT: Dwayne Brown, Headquarters, Washington, +1-202-358-1726, dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov, or Nancy Neal Jones, Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., +1-301-286-0039, nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov
Web site: http://www.nasa.gov/
http://www.nasa.gov/ibex
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