CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The European-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft is officially on its way to the sun.
The 3,790-lb. (1,800 kilograms) spacecraft lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, rising off a pad at Space Launch Complex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sunday (Feb. 9) at 11:03 p.m. EST (0403 GMT on Feb. 10). The veteran launcher flew in a unique configuration featuring a 13-foot-wide (4 meters) fairing and a single solid rocket booster.
Solar Orbiter separated from the rocket as planned 53 minutes after liftoff. And, a few minutes later, the mission team had established communications with the spacecraft. So this launch, the first of the year for ULA, seemed to go swimmingly.
#SolarOrbiter – we hear you!We have acquisition of signal. Our New Norica tracking station has locked on to #SolarOrbiter. Transmission coming in loud and clear.#AOS✅#LoudAndClear〰️#Estrack? pic.twitter.com/vLRmHBc113February 10, 2020
Image 1 of 6The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket and Solar Orbiter sit on Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral at sunset. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)
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The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter stands ready for launch on the pad of Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Amy Thompson/Space.com)
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The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter stands ready for launch on the pad of Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Amy Thompson/Space.com)
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The fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket with the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft inside at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida during launch preparations on, on Jan. 21, 2020. (Image credit: S. Corvaja/ESA)
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The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter undergoes a solar array deployment test at the IABG facilities in Ottobrunn, Germany on March 21, 2019. The solar panels are suspended from above to simulate the weightlessness of space. (Image credit: S. Corvaja/ESA)
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he fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket with the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft inside at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida during launch preparations, on Jan. 21, 2020. (Image credit: S. Corvaja/ESA)
Solar Orbiter is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The mission is expected to return unprecedented data and images, as well as our first views of the sun’s polar regions, and the team of people behind it are thrilled.
“Whenever you launch something, it’s incredibly exciting,” Günther Hasinger, ESA’s director of science, told Space.com. “The biggest relief comes when you see the light from the rocket and then when the sounds waves hit you.”
“This mission is such a treasure and important to science, we all want it to go well,” he added.
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter will take the first-ever direct images of the sun’s poles. (Image credit: Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Sun: NASA/SDO/P. Testa (CfA))
Scientists first proposed this mission over two decades ago, in 1999. ESA officials originally planned for the mission to launch sometime between 2008 and 2013. However, technical difficulties and some mission reshuffling ultimately delayed the launch to 2020.
“The thermal protection system for the spacecraft has been one [of a few] challenges,” said César García, Solar Orbiter project manager at ESA.
Over the years, technology developments have enabled the team to better protect the spacecraft and its suite of ultra-sensitive instruments. To stay cool, the craft has a 324-lb. (150 kg) heat shield, which is built to withstand temperatures up to 970 degrees Fahrenheit (520 degrees Celsius), Hasing said.
“Solar Orbiter will go into this region that is about as hot as a pizza oven,” he said. “It has a very intricate heat shield that is keeping it safe from sun, with these little peep holes that open when we want to look at the sun, but then close because the instruments are so sensitive.”
The heat shield resembles a sandwich, made up of many layers of titanium foil. And that foil (along with parts of the spacecraft) is coated with a special material called SolarBlack that was created for Solar Orbiter. Made of calcium phosphate (the same material as human bone), the coating has also been used to help prosthetics bond with human bone, reducing the chance of rejection.
The bone-based coating, which covers a large portion of the spacecraft, has stable thermal properties, is electrically conductive and will not slough off over the course of the mission. García said that white is a typical color choice for spacecraft coatings because it reflects the sun’s rays incredibly well. Unfortunately, it has a major disadvantage: the white coloring will darken over time as it’s exposed to ultraviolet radiation. This significantly changes the thermal properties of the spacecraft and can adversely affect its instruments.
The team unofficially dubbed Solar Orbiter “Blackbird” as a nod to its special thermal protection system.
Another challenge was to ensure that the onboard instruments do not interfere with magnetic field measurements the spacecraft will take. Cleanliness is yet another challenge, according to García.
He told Space.com that the instruments are sensitive to molecular contamination, and that any type of residue, dust particles or stray hair could spell disaster for the science expected from these instruments. García also explained that the spacecraft is also sensitive to water vapor. In fact, the craft’s sensitive telescopes are not going to turn on for a while so that any residual water vapor that formed during launch will evaporate.
During a prelaunch news briefing on Friday (Feb. 7), García said that the spacecraft was cleaner than it was required to be for the instruments to perform as expected. “This is the cleanest spacecraft ever launched,” he told Space.com.
This infographic depicts Solar Orbiter’s suite of 10 science instruments that will study the sun. There are two types: in situ and remote sensing. The in situ instruments measure the conditions around the spacecraft itself. The remote-sensing instruments measure what is happening at large distances away. (Image credit: S. Poletti/ESA)
ESA is leading the Solar Orbiter mission, with NASA paying for the launch vehicle and one of the 10 instruments on board. NASA’s total monetary contribution to the mission is roughly $386 million, with ESA contributing $877 million out of a grand total cost of around $1.5 billion. (García told Space.com that the participating research institutions and universities were not required to disclose how much each of the individual instruments cost.)
Solar Orbiter was designed to study the sun up close. Its main goal is to answer the question: How does the sun create and control the heliosphere — the huge protective bubble that surrounds our solar system — and why does that bubble change over time?
Scientists believe the key to answering that question lies in the sun’s polar regions. Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft to image this enigmatic region. “We believe this area holds the keys to unraveling the mysteries of the sun’s activity cycle,” Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist, told Space.com.
“The sun’s magnetic field causes all the effects we see,” he added. Solar Orbiter will connect what’s going on at the sun with what’s happening out in the heliosphere in unprecedented detail, mission team members have said.
The probe’s measurements will help establish a cause-and-effect relationship to what happens on the sun and what we observe in the near-Earth environment, Sam Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, told Space.com.
“It’s a wonderful compliment to the Parker Solar Probe, which takes in-situ measures but cannot see the whole picture,” Solanki said, referring to a record-breaking NASA probe that launched in August 2018.
Gravity assist maneuvers at Earth and Venus will enable the Solar Orbiter spacecraft to change inclination to observe the sun from different perspectives. During the initial cruise phase, which lasts until November 2021, Solar Orbiter will perform two gravity-assist maneuvers around Venus and one around Earth to alter the spacecraft’s trajectory, guiding it towards the innermost regions of the solar system. The first close solar pass will take place in 2022 at around a third of Earth’s distance from the sun. (Image credit: S. Poletti/ESA)
The first good look at the sun’s poles won’t come until 2025, when Solar Orbiter will reach a trajectory of 17 degrees above the ecliptic plane — where the Earth and the rest of the planets orbit. The spacecraft will achieve this vantage point via gravity-assist flybys of Venus, which will boost its inclination.
Solar Orbiter’s steepest viewpoint, 33 degrees above the ecliptic, won’t come until 2029, when the spacecraft will be well into an expected extended mission (which would start in December 2026). That angle will provide the best images of the sun’s polar regions, although throughout the mission, the spacecraft will beam back unprecedented data about these never-before-seen regions.
But for now, Solar Orbiter will cruise toward the sun, completing a few passes of Venus on its way to study our star up close. Preliminary science measurements are expected as early as May, with full science operations commencing in November 2021 when the craft’s imagers come online.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 12:10 a.m. EST on Feb. 10 with news of spacecraft separation and the establishment of communications with Solar Orbiter.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
