SOLAR-B launch 22nd of September.

Solar-B will be launched on 22 September 2006 at 23:36 CEST from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Uchinoura Space Centre in Japan. The satellite will be placed into a 96-minute polar orbit around Earth.

KSAT is supporting the upcoming SOLAR-B Launch. In addition to supporting the launch, KSAT will also download X-band data from Solar-B, which will be distributed to Japan and the University of Oslo.

Solar-B will study the mechanisms which power the solar atmosphere and look for the causes of violent solar eruptions. This will lead to a better understanding of the complex connection between the Sun and Earth. The orbit will be synchronised with respect to the Earth's revolution around the Sun. This particular geometry will allow the spacecraft to be in continuous sunlight for at least nine months a year during the planned mission duration of three years.

SOLAR-B is the third solar physics satellite of ISAS which was approved as a successor of the highly successful Japan/US/UK YOHKOH (SOLAR-A) collaboration. It employs SOT,a large optical telescope with 50-cm aperture,and two X-ray / extreme ultraviolet imagers,XRT and EIS. By observing simultaneously visible surface of the Sun (photosphere) and the solar corona, SOLAR-B aims to understand the origin and consequences of various active phenomena which take place in the corona.

In order to suppress as much as possible variation of heat input to the spacecraft, which is indispensable for achieving ultra-high spatial resolution of SOT (0.2 seconds of arc), and to realize long-term uninterrupted observation of the Sun, SOLAR-B is so designed as to take the sun-synchronous polar orbit. From this orbit on the day-night boundary of the earth, SOLAR-B will be able to observe the Sun continuously for 8 months in a year.

Specification

Text by: KSAT, JAXA and ESA.
For full text, and more information about SOLAR-B,
please see the following links:

• SOLAR-B at JAXA
• SOLAR-B at ESA
• SOLAR-B at NASA
• SOLAR-B at Norwegian Spacecentre (article in Norwegian)

(18.09.06)