NASA’s Carruthers Observatory Deploys
The third and final Sun and space weather observatory successfully deployed from the second stage. NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is on a journey to Lagrange point 1.
Carruthers mission will study Earth’s exosphere, the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere. It will be the first mission dedicated to understanding changes in this expansive region we know little about. The mission seeks to answer basic questions about the nature of Earth’s exosphere, such as its shape, size, and density, and what causes these aspects to change over time.
The exosphere is a transitional region from Earth’s environment to the space environment and is difficult to observe from the surface of our planet. The exosphere plays an important role in Earth’s response to space weather, the changing conditions in space driven primarily by the Sun. Space weather can impact our technology, from satellites in orbit, to communication signals in the upper atmosphere, to power grids on the ground. The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will help us better understand the fundamental physics of our atmosphere and improve our ability to predict the impacts of the Sun’s activity.
Mission operations managers at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, will attempt to acquire signal with Carruthers around 9:30 a.m. EDT, so continue to follow the blog for updates.
