NASA launches solar probe (Roundup)

Feb 11, 2010, 16:36 GMT

Washington - An Atlas V rocket carrying a satellite to study the sun blasted off from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Thursday.

The 10:23 am (1523 GMT) launch sent the satellite into orbit, where it is to collect the most data ever assembled about the sun. The information will be relayed to a ground station in New Mexico, where the high-resolution images of the sun, readings from inside the sun and measurements of its magnetic field activity will be analyzed.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is the 'crown jewel' of a fleet of NASA satellites planned to collect more details about what's going on underneath and above the surface of the sun, said Michael Luther, a NASA official overseeing the programme.

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.

Under the Living With a Star programme, scientists said they hope to better predict the sun's periodic release of billions of tons of matter that can endanger human life and health, corrode oil pipelines, disrupt communications and cause power surges.

The solar probe will collect 60 images a minute with 10 times the resolution of high-definition television, 24 hours a day, measuring the sun's extreme ultraviolet light and mapping its plasma flows and magnetic fields.

From Earth's orbit, the SDO is to download 1.5 terabytes every day.

Under the normal 11-year cycle of solar disruptions, also known as sunspots, the SDO's mission will coincide with the next storms in 2013 or 2014.

Two earlier planned launches had to be postponed because of poor weather conditions.