posted 06-20-2019 05:55 PM               

NASA selects PUNCH mission to study our Sun

NASA has selected a new mission to advance our understanding of the Sun and its dynamic effects on space. The Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH, mission will study how the Sun drives particles and energy into the solar system.

The Sun generates a vast outpouring of solar particles known as the solar wind, which can create a dynamic system of radiation in space called space weather. Near Earth, where such particles interact with our planet's magnetic field, the space weather system can lead to profound impacts on human interests, such as astronauts' safety, radio communications, GPS signals, and utility grids on the ground.

The more we understand what drives space weather and its interaction with the Earth and lunar systems, the more we can mitigate its effects – including safeguarding astronauts and technology crucial to NASA's Artemis program to the Moon.

Composed of four suitcase-sized satellites, PUNCH will image and track the solar wind as it leaves the Sun. The spacecraft also will track coronal mass ejections – large eruptions of solar material that can drive large space weather events near Earth – to better understand their evolution and develop new techniques for predicting such eruptions.

These observations will enhance national and international research by other NASA missions such as Parker Solar Probe, and the upcoming ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA Solar Orbiter, due to launch in 2020. PUNCH will be able to image, in real time, the structures in the solar atmosphere that these missions encounter by blocking out the bright light of the Sun and examining the much fainter atmosphere.

Together, these missions will investigate how the star we live with drives radiation in space. PUNCH is led by Craig DeForest at the Southwest Research institute in Boulder, Colorado. Including launch costs, PUNCH is being funded for no more than $165 million.

The PUNCH mission will be managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Explorers Program, the oldest continuous NASA program, is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the work of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in astrophysics and heliophysics. The program is managed by Goddard for the Science Mission Directorate, which conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and universe.

posted 02-19-2025 10:06 AM               

PUNCH spacecraft undergo final test and integration

The four PUNCH spacecraft are now at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California, undergoing final test and integration to the "launch stack" with the SPHEREx spacecraft. All five spacecraft are planned to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than February 27, 2025.

The PUNCH integration "away team" are carrying out comprehensive tests on each of the four spacecraft, including exercising the instrument doors and solar arrays, verifying the on-board computers and instruments work properly, and testing the communications links. The four spacecraft will be bolted to a single deployer ring for launch into Sun-synchronous dawn/dusk polar orbit during an evening launch window.

Above: Technicians use fluorescence to inspect wiring on a PUNCH spacecraft, in the runup to integration with SPHEREx (conical shroud in background) and their joint launch deployer. (SwRI)

Above: The four PUNCH spacecraft, in their aluminum handling fixtures, are lined up undergoing checkouts before final integration and launch. (SwRI)

posted 03-12-2025 09:10 AM               

NASA Launches Mission to Study Sun

NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will study how the Sun's outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind, lifted off at 8:10 p.m. PDT on March 11 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The PUNCH satellites successfully separated about 53 minutes after launch, and ground controllers have established communication with all four PUNCH spacecraft. Now, PUNCH begins a 90-day commissioning period where the four satellites will enter the correct orbital formation, and the instruments will be calibrated as a single "virtual instrument" before the scientists start to analyze images of the solar wind.

The mission is designed to operate in a low Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit over the day-night line (also known as the terminator) so the Sun always remains in the same position relative to the spacecraft.

NASA's PUNCH will make global, 3D observations of the inner solar system and the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, to learn how its mass and energy become the solar wind, a stream of charged particles blowing outward from the Sun in all directions. The mission will explore the formation and evolution of space weather events such as coronal mass ejections, which can create storms of energetic particle radiation that can endanger spacecraft and astronauts.

"The space between planets is not an empty void. It's full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth," said Craig DeForest, the mission's principal investigator, at the Southwest Research Institute. "The PUNCH mission is designed to answer basic questions about how stars like our Sun produce stellar winds, and how they give rise to dangerous space weather events right here on Earth."