NASA’s CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment, or CURIE, is scheduled to launch July 9, 2024, to investigate the unresolved origins of radio waves coming from the Sun.
CURIE will investigate where solar radio waves
originate in coronal mass ejections, like this one seen in 304- and
171-angstrom wavelengths by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Scientists first noticed these radio waves decades ago, and over the years they’ve determined the radio waves come from solar flares and giant eruptions on the Sun called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which are a key driver of space weather that can impact satellite communications and technology at Earth. But no one knows where the radio waves originate within a CME.
The CURIE mission aims to advance our understanding using a technique
called low frequency radio interferometry, which has never been used in space
before. This technique relies on CURIE’s two independent spacecraft — together
no bigger than a shoebox — that will orbit Earth about two miles apart. This
separation allows CURIE’s instruments to measure tiny differences in the
arrival time of radio waves, which enables them to determine exactly where the
radio waves came from.
“This is a very ambitious and very exciting mission,” said Principal
Investigator David Sundkvist, a researcher at the University of California,
Berkeley. “This is the first time that someone is ever flying a radio
interferometer in space in a controlled way, and so it’s a pathfinder for radio
astronomy in general.”
CURIE team members work on integrating the satellites
into the CubeSat deployer.
The spacecraft, designed by a team from UC Berkeley, will measure radio waves ranging 0.1 to 19 megahertz to pinpoint the radio waves’ solar origin. These wavelengths are blocked by Earth’s upper atmosphere, so this research can only be done from space.
CURIE will launch aboard an ESA (European Space Agency) Ariane 6 rocket
in early July from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The rocket
will take CURIE to 360 miles above Earth’s surface, where it can get a clear
view of the Sun’s radio waves.
Once in its circular orbit, the two adjoined CURIE spacecraft will
establish communication with ground stations before orienting and separating.
When the separated satellites are in formation, their dual eight-foot antennas
will deploy and start collecting data.
CURIE is sponsored by NASA’s Heliophysics Flight Opportunities for
Research and Technology (H-FORT) Program and is the sole mission manifested on
the NASA CubeSat
Launch Initiative’s ELaNa (Educational Launch of
Nanosatellites) 43 mission. As a pathfinder, CURIE will demonstrate a
proof-of-concept for space-based radio interferometry in the CubeSat form
factor. CURIE will also pave the way for the upcoming Sun Radio Interferometer
Space Experiment, or SunRISE, mission. SunRISE will employ six CubeSats to map the region where the
solar radio waves originate in 2-D.
By Mara
Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Source: NASA Mission to Study Mysteries in the Origin of Solar Radio Waves - NASA Science
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