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Interstellar Boundary Explorer enters new phase SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE NEWS RELEASE Posted: June 2, 2006 Just as the Voyager 2 spacecraft is approaching the edge of our solar system, Southwest Research Institute received official confirmation from NASA Headquarters to proceed into the mission implementation phase for the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission. IBEX, which will provide global images of the interstellar boundary, the region between our solar system and interstellar space, is scheduled to launch in June 2008.
"IBEX will let us visualize our home in the galaxy and imagine how it may have evolved over the history of the solar system," McComas continued. In mid-2008, the IBEX mission will launch a pair of energetic neutral atom (ENA) "cameras" to image the interaction between the solar system and the low-density material between the stars. The Sun's hot outer atmosphere continuously evaporates into space, forming the million-mile-per-hour solar wind that creates a protective envelope around our solar system, far beyond the most distant planets. IBEX will image our solar system's previously invisible outer boundaries to discover how the solar wind interacts with the galactic medium. "Everything we think we know about this region is from models, indirect observations and the recent single-point observations from Voyagers 1 and 2 that frankly have created as many questions as answers," says McComas. Voyager 2 may be approaching the termination shock, the outermost layer of our solar system, even sooner than expected based on when Voyager 1 crossed the region. Data suggest that the edge of the shock could be one billion miles closer to the sun in the southern region of the solar system than in the north, suggesting perhaps that the heliosphere is irregularly shaped. "The extensive global data IBEX will collect, used in concert with the local data that the Voyager missions are sampling, will provide a much deeper understanding of the Sun's interaction with the galaxy," McComas added. "In addition to revealing many of the interstellar boundary's unknown properties, IBEX will explore how the solar wind regulates the galactic cosmic radiation from the galaxy. This radiation poses a major hazard to human space exploration of the solar system."
As the Southwest Research Institute-led Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission enters the implementation phase, the spacecraft and instrument designs are being completed, and prototype hardware is being built and tested. The University of Bern built these electrostatic analyzer plates to bend particle trajectories, enabling very low-background observations of the edge of our solar system. SwRI is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organization based in San Antonio, Texas, with more than 3,000 employees and an annual research volume of more than $435 million. Southwest Research Institute and SwRI are registered marks in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. |
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Space shuttle Columbia began mission STS-61C with a beautiful sunrise launch in January 1986 after several delays. Led by commander Hoot Gibson, the astronauts deployed a commercial communications satellite and tended to numerous experiments with the Materials Science Laboratory, Hitchhiker platform and Getaway Special Canisters in the payload bay. The crew included Congressman Bill Nelson of Florida, the first U.S. Representative to fly in space. Watch this post-flight film narrated by the astronauts.
The Boeing Delta 4 rocket launches from pad 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with the GOES-N spacecraft, beginning a new era in weather observing for the Americas.
As night fell over Kennedy Space Center on May 19, space shuttle Discovery reached launch pad 39B to complete the slow journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Discovery will be traveling much faster in a few weeks when it blasts off to the International Space Station.
The November 1985 flight of space shuttle Atlantis began with a rare nighttime blastoff. The seven-member crew, including a Mexican payload specialist, spent a week in orbit deploying three communications satellites for Australia, Mexico and the U.S. And a pair of high-visibility spacewalks were performed to demonstrate techniques for building large structures in space. The crew narrates the highlights of STS-61B in this post-flight crew film presentation.
Eight astronauts, the largest crew in history, spent a week in space during the fall of 1985 aboard shuttle Challenger for mission STS-61A, the first flight dedicated to the German Spacelab. The crew worked in the Spacelab D-1 laboratory conducting a range of experiments, including a quick-moving sled that traveled along tracks in the module. A small satellite was ejected from a canister in the payload bay as well. The astronauts narrate the highlights of the mission in this post-flight film.
