NASA has once again picked the top three proposed missions that they think could help people get a better understanding of the weather in space and how it affects the weather that people feel on Earth. Solar Flares, like any other form of space weather, can impact the astronauts, their spacecrafts, as well as the utility grids on the ground level.
As NASA prepared for more space missions, they have become increasingly concerned about how technology and all its advancements protect human life as well as how it can be protected from the worse.
One of the proposed missions that NASA is carefully considering is the Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope (EUVST) Epsilon. This device is designed to observe how the magnetic fields and the solar plasma interact in space. It may also be used to drive various solar activities including solar flares.
There is another proposed mission called the Aeronomy at Earth: Tools for Heliophysics Exploration and Research (AETHER). This one proposed to observe the ionosphere. It is the area in the Earth's atmosphere that basically overlaps with the lower regions identified in space. It would help gather information to better understand how the ionosphere as observed from the International Space Station affects the part of the ionosphere that is observable from the ground on Earth.
The third mission called the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) proposes to look into the auroral electrojet. This is the electric current near the poles that revolves around the atmosphere. It aims to use three small satellites to observe how the electrojets are formed and how they can grow bigger to make geomagnetic storms to happen. The observation of such is highly important because when it happens, it makes the magnetic fields on Earth to oscillate.
Each proposal, once accepted, will receive an amount of $400.000 to work on the project within the period of 9 months. One of these proposals will be selected for a launch and will receive $55 million dollars from the funding agency Heliophysics Explorer's program of NASA.
The space agency has already spent a good amount of time and resources to better understand the weather in space. Over the years, they have become proactive, thinking about how else they can improve their understanding of space weather. In June of this year, NASA has selected two proposals that focuses on studying how the Sun is in control of the weather, even in space.
As NASA prepares to send its first woman to the moon, the agency hopes they could learn more about space weather in order to put mitigation of its effects, both in the spacecraft and the astronauts. Considering the role that technology plays in the modern world, such endeavour will only prove to be more useful.
