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NASA Solar Probe Blasts Toward Rendezvous With Sun
coondoggie writes "NASA this morning used a United Launch Alliance Atlas rocket to blast its 6,800lb Solar Dynamics Observatory into an orbit 22,300 miles above Earth. The $808 million spacecraft will ultimately study the Sun and send back what NASA called a prodigious rush of pictures about sunspots, solar flares and a variety of other never-before-seen solar events. The idea is to get a better idea of how the Sun works and let scientists better forecast the space weather to offer earlier warnings to protect astronauts and satellites, NASA said."
This is similar to how Nuclear Man came to be.
...now we're sending a spaceship to the sun?? I hope they're at least sending it at night so it won't get burnt.
...a bright idea.
They'd better go at night!
Just make sure that you hit the thrusters at the right moment or you won't be able to escape the sun's gravity for the slingshot.
--- Do you believe in the day?
A "prodigious rush" is 16 megabytes per second! Now we know.
...sadily the craft is made of asbestos, and we connot recover the data....
So we'll get a little bit of warning that a big flare is on the way, gps is going to be disrupted, and the air-traffic-control system is going to fail.
Excellent!
Dave
I can see from my house.
I think that I will go outside and rendezvous with the Sun too.
However, even if it isn't going much closer to the Sun than my back yard, it is in a cool orbit.
SDO is a sun-pointing semi-autonomous spacecraft that will allow nearly continuous observations of the Sun with a continuous science data downlink rate of 130 Megabits per second (Mbps). The spacecraft is 4.5 meters high and over 2 meters on each side, weighing a total of 3100 kg (fuel included). SDO's inclined geosynchronous orbit was chosen to allow continuous observations of the Sun and enable its exceptionally high data rate through the use of a single dedicated ground station.
So, it is in a geostationary orbit with the major advantage of the L1 Lagrange point (continuous observations) but requiring less fuel to reach, less power to communicate, and only one ground station (a L1 observatory needs 3, or sufficient on-board recording). That sounds like a major win for this new orbit, which I predict will be used more in the future.
With this orbit, it might also be able to get some cool pictures of Lunar eclipses, which SOHO (at the L1 Lagrange point) can never do.
Anyone reminded of Disaster Area and their spaceship rendezvous with a sun?
Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally held to be not only the loudest rock band in the history of the Galaxy, but the loudest noise of any kind at all.
Regular concert-goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the stage, whilst the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet or more frequently around a completely different planet.
Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's PA system contravenes local strategic arms limitation treaties. This has not stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, but is in fact totally bent.
We're going to dive into the sun. Sun. Dive. It's a very simple concept.
let scientists better forecast the space weather to offer earlier warnings
In Approximately 8 minutes, there will be a heatwave along the Eastern Coast, as you can tell by our satellite imagery here on the sun. Now to Greg with a sports update.
From TFA:
"That's almost 50 times more science data than any other mission in NASA history. It's like downloading 500,000 iTunes a day."
Gentlemen, we are witnessing the birth of new units for download rate. I predict great success - expect to see your Steam games downloading at iTunes/day by this summer.
They're going to schedule it to arrive at night so it's safer.
Knowing this projects is happening, and the potential to capture other events "never-before-seen" is exciting, however it would be much more appealing (to me) if the data was viewable. Lets say for instance, the solar probe utilizes a simple script to post a photo of the sun every 12 hours to a live feed, like a twitter or tumblr account. Would be fun to catch a daily of a nuclear explosion in the sky.
Do not look at sun with remaining camera.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
You don't rendezvous with something by pointing a camera at it. I'm guessing the guy who wrote the summary either doesn't know what the word means, or is some sort of deluded voyeur? "Yeah, I rendezvous with the chick across the street every night - she NEVER closes her curtains!"
I hope they sent it at night...
The current administration cuts have affected this program. They realise the expense of sending a probe to the sun is costly and a one-way trip.
To reduce these costs and to be able to retrieve their probe the current administration has decided we'll go at night.
They're calling for more than a few days of the year:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Or they could just throw it all in a torrent and put it on TPB.
I can see, in the next five years, "the sky is falling" fear mongering about "Solar Climate Change".
You give them an inch, they take 150 million kilometers.
And tell me that conspiracy theories are all b*llshit, but I guess this solar probe mission is not only to protect astronauts and satellites, but to protect the very existence of our planet. Some theories suggest that dinosaurs became extinct not due to a giant asteroid impact but due to magnetic poles displacement.
And I'd be glad to hear the craziest thoughts on this issue.
Censoring your space experience since the 1960s. More false horizons please.
Wasn't this on an episode of Josie & the Pussycats in Space? A bunch of giant aliens captured the ship so they could fly it into their sun to extinguish it. But then those darn kids foiled their plan but suggested they try sunglasses instead.
The launch footage posted on SpaceWeather.com is very impressive.
NASA stole his ship.
Your brain is not a computer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_0iZQ-TuA
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.