Ride with NASA Artemis 1 is a CubeSat weather station intended to orbit the sun in interplanetary space. The CubeSat for the Study of Solar Particles (CuSP) is a six-unit (6U) cubesat was designed by the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in San Antonio to study the attack of solar radiation on Earthotherwise known as solar wind. The sun constantly shoots out active particles that bombard the Earth, but in some cases, it does so in powerful bursts known as Solar flares. While one of the prettiest side effects of such solar events is the creation of auroras, larger solar events can wreak havoc on radio communications, satellites, power grids, and even astronauts and airline crews who are at risk of solar radiation exposure. As it stands, it is very difficult to predict how a solar event will affect Earth. About a dozen space weather satellites monitor solar radiation from orbit, but that’s not nearly enough to provide a clear forecast. “Right now, it’s like trying to understand the weather for the entire Pacific Ocean with just a few weather stations. We need to collect data from more locations,” said Eric Christian, lead scientist for CuSP at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. he said to one statement (opens in a new tab). He proposes putting about 20 CubeSats into different orbits “to understand the space environment in three dimensions.” CuSP will present a low-cost way to devise such a network of space weather stations. For this pathfinding mission, CuSP will carry three instruments to study solar radiation: the Superthermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS), built by SWRI; the Microscopic Electron and Proton Telescope (MERiT), built by Goddard; and the Vector Helium Magnetometer (VHM), built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. They will study low-energy particles, high-energy particles, and the strength and direction of magnetic fields, respectively. “CuSP will be able to observe events in space hours before they reach Earth,” said Mihir Desai, the principal investigator for CuSP at SWRI. “Such interplanetary observations would give us important insight into what drives space weather, helping scientists improve their simulations.” Follow Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek (opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) and then Facebook (opens in a new tab).
