NASA Launches Radiation Belt Storm Probes

NASA’s Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), the first twin-spacecraft mission designed to explore our planet’s radiation belts, launched into the predawn skies at 4:05 a.m. EDT today from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

“Scientists will learn in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles, what causes them to change and how these processes affect the upper reaches of the atmosphere around Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. “The information collected from these probes will benefit the public by allowing us to better protect our satellites and understand how space weather affects communications and technology on Earth.”

The two satellites, each weighing just less than 1,500 pounds, comprise the first dual-spacecraft mission specifically created to investigate the hazardous regions of near-Earth space, known as the radiation belts. These two belts, named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, encircle the planet and are filled with highly charged particles. The belts are affected by solar storms and coronal mass ejections and sometimes swell dramatically. When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications, GPS satellites and human spaceflight.

“We have never before sent such comprehensive and high-quality instruments to study high radiation regions of space,” said Barry Mauk, RBSP project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. “RBSP was crafted to help us learn more about, and ultimately predict, the response of the radiation belts to solar inputs.”

The hardy RBSP satellites will spend the next 2 years looping through every part of both Van Allen belts. By having two spacecraft in different regions of the belts at the same time, scientists finally will be able to gather data that describe the belts’ changes over space and time. Designers fortified RBSP with special protective plating and rugged electronics to operate and survive within this punishing region of space that other spacecraft avoid. In addition, a space weather broadcast will transmit selected data from those instruments around the clock, giving researchers a check on current conditions near Earth.

“The excitement of seeing the spacecraft in orbit and beginning to perform science measurements is like no other thrill,” said Richard Fitzgerald, RBSP project manager at APL. “The entire RBSP team, from across every organization, worked together to produce an amazing pair of spacecraft.”

RBSP was lifted into orbit aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket from Launch Complex 41, as the rocket’s plume lit the dark skies over the Florida coast. The first RBSP spacecraft separated from the Atlas rocket’s Centaur booster 1 hour, 18 minutes, 52 seconds after launch. The second RBSP spacecraft separated 12 minutes, 14 seconds later. Mission controllers using APL’s 60-foot satellite dish established radio contact with each probe immediately.

During the next 60 days, operators will power up all flight systems and science instruments and deploy long antenna booms, two of which are more than 54 yards long. Data about the particles that swirl through the belts, and the fields and waves that transport them, will be gathered by five instrument suites designed and operated by teams at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark; University of Iowa in Iowa City; University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; the University of New Hampshire in Durham; and the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va. The data will be analyzed by scientists across the nation almost immediately.

The two satellites of RBSP mark the 65th and 66th spacecraft built and launched by APL since 1961. APL has a long and storied history of space exploration and innovation, including the development of the first satellite-based navigation system in 1960 and the building and management of current NASA missions including MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, and New Horizons, the first spacecraft to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt region.

“We are proud to have designed, tested and delivered to NASA a pair of remarkable spacecraft,” said John Sommerer, head of APL’s Space Department. “They have been well-equipped to undertake a challenging research mission within the harshest near-Earth space environment. The data collected by RBSP will inform scientifically profound and socially beneficial study for years to come.”

RBSP is the second mission in NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. APL built the RBSP spacecraft and will manage the mission for NASA.

For more information about NASA’s RBSP mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rbsp and http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu.