NASA mission to study mysteries in the origin of solar radio waves

NASA’s CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment, or CURIE, is scheduled to launch July 9, 2024, to research the unresolved origins of radio waves coming from the sun.

Scientists first observed these radio waves a long time in the past, and over time they’ve decided the radio waves come from solar flares and big eruptions on the sun referred to as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, that are a key driver of space climate that may impression satellite communications and know-how on Earth. However nobody is aware of the place the radio waves originate inside a CME.

The CURIE mission goals to advance our understanding utilizing a method referred to as low frequency radio interferometry, which has by no means been utilized in space earlier than. This method depends on CURIE’s two unbiased spacecraft—collectively no greater than a shoebox—that may orbit Earth about two miles aside. This separation permits CURIE’s devices to measure tiny variations within the arrival time of radio waves, which allows them to find out precisely the place the radio waves got here from.

“It is a very formidable and really thrilling mission,” stated Principal Investigator David Sundkvist, a researcher on the College of California, Berkeley. “That is the primary time that somebody is ever flying a radio interferometer in space in a managed approach, and so it is a pathfinder for radio astronomy normally.”

The spacecraft, designed by a group from UC Berkeley, will measure radio waves starting from 0.1 to 19 megahertz to pinpoint the radio waves’ solar origin. These wavelengths are blocked by Earth’s higher ambiance, so this analysis can solely be accomplished from space.

CURIE will launch aboard an ESA (European House Company) Ariane 6 rocket in early July from the Guiana House Middle in Kourou, French Guiana. The rocket will take CURIE to 360 miles above Earth’s floor, the place it may well get a transparent view of the sun’s radio waves.

As soon as in its circular orbit, the 2 adjoined CURIE spacecraft will set up communication with floor stations earlier than orienting and separating. When the separated satellites are in formation, their twin eight-foot antennas will deploy and begin accumulating information.

CURIE is the only mission manifested on the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative’s ELaNa (Instructional Launch of Nanosatellites) 43 mission. As a pathfinder, CURIE will show a proof-of-concept for space-based radio interferometry within the CubeSat kind issue. CURIE may also pave the way in which for the upcoming Solar Radio Interferometer House Experiment, or SunRISE, mission. SunRISE will make use of six CubeSats to map the area the place the solar radio waves originate in 2D.