* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: IBEX Mission

Blobrana · L

NASA is preparing to launch a satellite that will study in unprecedented detail the distant regions where the outermost reaches of our solar system collide with the cold expanse of interstellar space.
The U.S. space agency said on Friday that the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, satellite is scheduled to be launched into high-Earth orbit on Sunday for its two-year mission from a site at Kwajalein Atoll in the south Pacific.

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Blobrana · L

NASA will hold a media teleconference on Friday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m. EDT, to preview the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, mission. The spacecraft may confirm if the sun's protective bubble surrounding our solar system, called the heliosphere, is about to shrink and weaken. IBEX also will be the first spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space.

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Blobrana · L

NASA to Webcast IBEX Spacecraft Launch on Pegasus Rocket Oct. 19
The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space will be launched on Sunday, Oct. 19, at 1:48 p.m. EDT, during a launch window that extends from 1:44 p.m. to 1:52 p.m. The two-year mission will begin from the U.S. Army's Reagan test site at Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the south Pacific Ocean.

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Blobrana · L

The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. The two-year mission will begin from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX, the spacecraft will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth to investigate and capture images of processes taking place at the farthest reaches of the solar system. Known as the interstellar boundary, this region marks where the solar system meets interstellar space.

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Blobrana · L

NASA will hold a media teleconference on Monday, Oct. 6, at 1 p.m. EDT, to discuss the upcoming launch of the first spacecraft that will image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space.
Called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, the spacecraft is set to launch Oct. 19 from Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

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Blobrana · L

NASA is letting the public help name a rocket. The Pegasus rocket is part of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission (IBEX) to map the boundary of our solar system.
Entries must be received before 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2008.

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Blobrana · L

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced today that the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), CA following the completion of its manufacturing, integration and testing activities at Orbitals facilities in Dulles, VA. The satellite arrived at VAFB on Monday, July 28 to begin the integration process with the Pegasus launch vehicle that will launch it into orbit, which is currently scheduled to take place in early October.

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Blobrana · L

NASAs Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, designed to image global interactions at the outer reaches of the solar system, today began its move to Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California.
The IBEX spacecraft was loaded into a truck at Orbital Sciences Corporation, Va., where engineers integrated the science payload with the spacecraft and completed numerous tests to ensure optimum performance during the launch and operational phases of the mission.

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Blobrana · L

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.

"We are most honored to be confirmed at a time when NASA's science program is under such intense budgetary pressure. This tremendous support really shows the importance of the IBEX science mission. IBEX will let us visualize our home in the galaxy and imagine how it may have evolved over the history of the solar system. 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" - Dr. David J. McComas, Principal Investigator and senior executive director of the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division.

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. 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" - Dr. David J. McComas.

SwRI is partnering with Orbital Science Corporation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Centre, Goddard Space Flight Centre, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Bern and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In addition, the team includes a number of U.S. and international scientists from universities and other institutions, as well as the Adler Planetarium, which is leading education and public outreach for the mission. IBEX is a NASA Explorer Program mission.
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 analyser plates to bend particle trajectories, enabling very low-background observations of the edge of our solar system.

www.ibex.swri.edu/