Solar Dynamics Observatory launch rescheduled to Thursday

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will carry it into space will be launched on Thursday morning. The launch window for Thursday runs from 10:23 a.m. to 11:23 a.m. It will be the second attempt to launch SDO. An earlier try was scrubbed because of high winds. The weather forecast improves to a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions.

The SDO spacecraft is headed to an orbit about 22,300 miles above Earth. From that altitude, the spacecraft will point its instruments at the sun and relay the readings instantly to a ground station in New Mexico.

SDO has three major instruments on board that will send data back for at least five years, hopefully 10. Both the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, or HMI, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA, will allow scientists to see the entire disc of the sun in very high resolution — 4,096 by 4,096 mm CCDs. In comparison, a standard digital camera uses a 7.176 by 5.329 mm CCD sensor.

The research is expected to reveal the sun’s inner workings by constantly taking high resolution images of the sun, collecting readings from inside the sun and measuring its magnetic field activity. This data is expected to give researchers the insight they need to eventually predict solar storms and other activity on the sun that can affect spacecraft in orbit, astronauts on the International Space Station and electronic and other systems on Earth.

Source & Image Credit: NASA

Some Related Articles

• Space Shuttle Crew safely returns after 11-day Mission
• Soyuz Capsule lands with Laliberte, Padalka and Barratt
• Space Junk moving toward Discovery and Space Station
• Space Shuttle Endeavour blasts off, finally!
• Endeavour launch scrubbed again