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NASA's IBEX Ready For Launch
dj writes "NASA has designed a mission to map the boundary of the solar system. The mission is called IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) and it is ready to launch. The data collected by IBEX will allow scientists to understand the interaction between our Sun and the galaxy for the first time. Understanding this interaction will help us protect future astronauts from the danger of galactic cosmic rays."
The IBEX Launch Blog will go active "about 2 hours before launch scheduled for 1:48 p.m. EDT," and the Southwest Research Institute will be running webcasts of the event. The IBEX fact sheet provides more details about the mission (PDF). IBEX will reach space via a Pegasus rocket launched from an L-1011 "Stargazer" carrier plane. You can see the launch countdown schedule at NASA's site.
The probe is not going to the edge of the solar system. This is a remote sensing mission. The instruments measure the Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs) created through charge exchange at the boundary of the heliosphere and the interstellar medium. Its a cool/novel way to get data without the crazy cost of going to the edge of the solar system.
Amazingly it takes 6 months to make one image (one half an orbit of Earth around the sun)
Orbital Sciences has much better information on the Pegasus and its launch aircraft.
(Damn, I've got to do something with the L1011 and Pegasus that are sitting in my 'to build' pile of scale models)