Nasa is to fund concept studies on five mission proposals that aim to study the dynamic nature of the sun and the changing space environment this causes around Earth.
Such information will help understand how the “space weather” affects satellites in orbit, which provide navigation and communications; technology on Earth, such as power stations; and the health of astronauts on interplanetary voyages.
The five proposals are: Storm, which would study the way energy flows into and through near-Earth space; HelioSwarm, which would study the flow of particles from the sun on a variety of different scales; Muse, which would monitor events in the sun’s atmosphere with unprecedented precision; Arcs, which would study the detailed way that aurorae on Earth are sparked by space weather; and Solaris, which would return images of the sun’s unseen polar regions.
The five proposals have been chosen because of the valuable science each mission would return, and because they are feasible to build and launch with current technology.
The studies are each worth $1.25m (£1m) and will run concurrently, lasting for nine months. At the end of this time, Nasa will evaluate the studies and then choose two proposals to proceed for launch.
