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Heliophysics Science Objectives

An artist's concept shows a planet at the top center with a blue band arcing around it in a horseshoe shape. The blue band is labeled the magnetosheath. The inner part of this blue band, closest to the planet, is labeled the magnetopause. The outer edge of the blue band is labeled the bow shock. Just outside the blue band, to the lower left of it, is a purple wedge-shaped area labeled the foreshock. On the far left is a red shaded area with red arrows pointing from left to right, appearing to push against the magnetosheath (blue region) and foreshock (purple) region, labeled the stellar wind.

Heliophysics Research Strategy: Bold Science in Action

NASA’s heliophysics strategic objective is to understand the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, including space weather. This means that we are pursuing a strategic portfolio of fundamental research and applied sciences through research solicitations. The fundamental research nurtures our innate curiosity about the Sun and fuels the applications that bring direct and tangible benefits to society. Our overarching heliophysics science objectives are to:

  • Master the Heliosphere: Solve the fundamental mysteries of our Sun and its domain.
  • Shield the Homefront: Build the predictive foundation for Earth’s space weather resilience.
  • Secure the Journey: Safeguard human exploration from the Moon to Mars and beyond.
  • Fuel the Space Economy: Power a sustainable, secure, and data-driven orbital future.

Guiding Priorities

Blue Origin rocket carrying NASA's ESCAPADE is vertical on launch pad.

Executive Order: Ensuring American Superiority in Space

Striking red and orange lines from the bottom left give way around a blueish-purple bubble of geomagnetic lines surrounding Earth.

National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan

Solar storm

Heliophysics Decadal Survey

This atmospheric Picture of the Week, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a dark, gloomy scene in the constellation of Gemini (The Twins). The subject of this image confused astronomers when it was first studied — rather than being classified as a single object, it was instead recorded as two objects, owing to its symmetrical lobed structure (known as NGC 2371 and NGC 2372, though sometimes referred to together as NGC 2371/2).  These two lobes are visible to the upper right and lower left of the frame, and together form something known as a planetary nebula. Despite the name, such nebulae have nothing to do with planets; NGC 2371/2 formed when a Sun-like star reached the end of its life and blasted off its outer layers, shedding the constituent material and pushing it out into space to leave just a superheated stellar remnant behind. This remnant is visible as the orange-tinted star at the centre of the frame, sitting neatly between the two lobes. The structure of this region is complex. It is filled with dense knots of gas, fast-moving jets that appear to be changing direction over time, and expanding clouds of material streaming outwards on diametrically opposite sides of the remnant star. Patches of this scene glow brightly as the remnant star emits energetic radiation that excites the gas within these regions, causing it to light up. This scene will continue to change over the next few thousand years; eventually the knotty lobes will dissipate completely, and the remnant star will cool and dim to form a white dwarf.  Links: Image of NGC 2371 published in 2008 Image of NGC 2371 published 1997

2025-2026 NASA Science Plan

CRITICAL PATH

Science Objectives

These objectives define the specific, high-priority problems that carry Heliophysics into the next decade.

These objectives represent the intersection of physical discovery and strategic necessity. Each is a fundamental scientific challenge bounded by a critical operational requirement. They also map directly to the strategic mission concepts identified in the Decadal Survey.

The Sun against a black background. The Sun is colorized primarily in blue, with some brighter purple areas scattered across the star showing higher activity areas. Toward the upper center of the star, there is a bright flash in white and red, which looks like an X -- the solar flare.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash toward the upper middle — on Feb. 4, 2026. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in blue and red.
NASA/SDO

Heliophysics Critical Path Science Objectives (click to expand)

  • Science Objective: Characterize the multiscale physical processes driving thermospheric variability and ion-neutral coupling.
  • Strategic Boundary: Quantify these drivers at the resolution and accuracy required to transform orbital decay prediction into a precision infrastructure for the LEO economy.
  • Focus: Bridging the gap between global-scale dynamics and local-scale density fluctuations that impact satellite drag and mission safety.
  • Impact: Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is now a space-driven economic engine. Increased atmospheric density during solar events is a direct threat to robotic and crewed assets. Quantifying this variability is essential for precise orbital decay prediction and collision avoidance.
  • Mission Alignment: Directly addresses the science objectives of the GDC and DYNAMIC mission architectures.

  • Science Objective: Quantify the flow of energy from the solar wind through the magnetosphere and into the ionosphere across coupled spatial and temporal scales.
  • Strategic Boundary: Determine the transfer mechanisms at the magnetopause necessary to provide actionable predictability of geomagnetic and ionospheric responses to solar forcing.
  • Focus: Moving from observational descriptions to a "system-of-systems", quantitative understanding of the Sun-Earth integrated circuit.
  • Impact: We must understand the "integrated circuit" of the Sun-Earth system to safeguard human infrastructure. This knowledge is critical for protecting power grids, communication arrays, and satellite constellations from geospace disturbances.
  • Mission Alignment: Supports the science goals associated with LINKS and the refocusing of assets like MMS toward "system-scale" science.

  • Science Objective: Determine the fundamental mechanisms of solar eruption energy release and the subsequent acceleration and transport of Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs).
  • Strategic Boundary: Achieve the high-fidelity quantification of SEP variability required to provide the actionable lead times necessary for astronaut safety during deep-space transit and lunar/Martian habitation.
  • Focus: Utilizing a 360-degree solar vantage to master the timing, magnitude, and trajectory of lethal radiation events.
  • Impact: Solar radiation events are an existential threat to human exploration beyond Earth’s magnetosphere. Mastering eruption timing and magnitude is the single most critical factor in providing actionable lead times for crew safety during Moon and Mars transits and habitation.
  • Mission Alignment: Supports the science goals associated with Solar Polar and the use of Parker Solar Probe/Solar Orbiter data.

  • Science Objective: Understand and quantify the plasma processes and radiation environments at the Moon and Mars that characterize the "working environment" of these bodies.
  • Strategic Boundary: Define the physical parameters of these environments with the precision needed to ensure the survivability and operational reliability of human-crewed systems and supporting technology.
  • Impact: Establishing the foundational environmental intelligence for the Moon to Mars architecture.
  • Justification: Sustainable habitation requires "environmental intelligence". We must understand how the space environment impacts human technology and surface operations to ensure the viability of a permanent presence beyond Earth.
  • Mission Alignment: Directly informs the Mars L1 Space Weather Sentinel and Artemis support

FRONTIER

Science Objectives

In addition to the critical path objectives listed below, these "Frontier Objectives" ensure a comprehensive vision to “Master the Heliosphere” and support our primary goals:

The Solar Dynamo: Characterize the long-term drivers of the solar cycle. Characterizing the solar cycle's influence on the long-term dynamics of the Sun-Earth system is vital for multi-decadal planning.
The Interstellar Boundary: Resolve the fundamental physics of the heliosheath to understand how our solar system interacts with the local galactic environment. This is a fundamental mystery that defines the boundaries of our home in the galaxy.
Cross-Disciplinary Discovery: Advance interdisciplinary and system-level studies, such as the impact of solar variability on planetary atmospheres.

This artist's concept shows the different expected directions of the magnetic fields in interstellar space (black lines) and the magnetic field emanating from our sun (white lines) as NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft travels northward out of the heliosphere.
PIA16485
NASA/JPL-Caltech

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