Looking for Sunshine’s Biggest Secret

Squinting up at the bright summer Sun instantly sparks the question of how something can be filled with so much energy light-years away.  The Sun has the power to heat major oceans, create fires in dense forests, and hypothetically fry an egg on a sidewalk on a hazy August day. This curiosity about energy and heat is what is sent IRIS into space this past week. NASA's researchers created the IRIS mission to get information and collect data about how the Sun creates the energy we need to exist. 

The IRIS Spacecraft during encapsulation inside the payload fairing of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL. Image courtesy of NASA. 

IRIS' mission and launch

The Sun is so bright that it makes it impossible to look at with the human eye. IRIS' mission plans to use a telescope to analyze the chromosphere region of the Sun and see how it moves to the Sun's shining corona. The mission will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. IRIS will start orbiting on the Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, which promises to add to the string of 27 successful missions in the last 17 years. IRIS and Pegasus will be carried into space under Orbital's “Stargazer” L-1011 carrier aircraft. The full launch will take place in three segments: the first load of fuel will be used in the first 73 seconds; then after 94 seconds the wingless rocket will ignite, shooting IRIS faster into space; and finally, IRIS will enter orbit and separate completely from the rocket after 13 minutes from launch time. IRIS will orbit around the north and south pole sections of the Earth.  

IRIS Dynamics

IRIS is 7 feet long and will analyze only 1% of the Sun at a time with its ultraviolent telescope. A concern for IRIS' close exposure to the Sun is the solar flares that the Sun releases as coronal mass ejections. Scientists are trying to figure out exactly how to protect the outside from these aberrations. “We know to some extent what we hope to learn, what specific science questions we are going to answer, but there's always that element of surprise,” Deputy Scientist Adrian Daw said on the discoveries IRIS will find. 

For more information, explore NASA's designated IRIS Mission webpage.

Want to go behind the scenes with NASA? Littelfuse has created an Exploration & Discovery Experience for the engineering community as part of its 2013 Speed2Design program. Winning design engineers will get the opportunity to spend time with NASA engineers at two NASA facilities and learn about the latest in space technology. For more information and to enter, visit speed2design.com. 

 By Emily Bahr