NASA Launches Newest Spacecraft, IBEX

NASA's newest spacecraft was successfully launched Sunday, October 19, at 1:47 p.m. EDT. The Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission, IBEX, reached orbit from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Six minutes later, at 1:53 p.m., the IBEX proper separated from its Pegasus launch vehicle and right on cue, powered up its own onboard systems.

Greg Frazier of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center announced the event by saying that, "after a 45-day orbit raising and spacecraft checkout period, the spacecraft will start its exciting science mission."

The IBEX is one of a new series of quickly developed, low-cost spacecraft known as Small Explorers. Although it is only approximately 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide, it weighs over 1,000 lbs. and has an octagonal, stop-sign shape.

The mission of the IBEX is to collect new information, imaging, and mapping the dynamic energies at the boundary of the solar system known as the interstellar boundary. This became extremely important to NASA and the astronomical community after the Voyager 1, in December 2004, reached the beginnings of this boundary "where solar winds crash into the gas of interstellar space" called the "termination shock" zone as reported by the AFP. The termination shock is called "a vast expanse of turbulent gas and twisting magnetic fields," by NASA's IBEX Factsheet.

Shortly after, in 2007, Voyager 2 entered the termination shock zone, which begins with the heliosheath and is expected to exit, going through the heliopause, where solar winds no longer reach, in 2010.

Both "Voyager spacecraft are making fascinating observations of the local conditions at two points beyond the termination shock that show totally unexpected results and challenge many of our notions about this important region," said David McComas, the IBEX Principal Investigator from the Southwest Research Institute.

McComas explains the purpose of the mission best in the IBEX Factsheet by saying, "IBEX will let us make the first global observations of the region beyond the termination shock at the very edges of our solar system. This region is critical because it shields out the vast majority of the deadly cosmic rays that would otherwise permeate the space around the Earth..." IBEX will also, "let us visualize our home in the galaxy for the first time and explore how it may have evolved over the history of the solar system."

IBEX will take a high orbit over the Earth at 200,000 miles distant and will take pictures with two large aperture single pixel "cameras" that measure energetic neutral atoms that are created in the interstellar boundary region when the one million mph solar winds clash with the interstellar gasses. The mission is expected to last two years.

Sources:

Press Release, "NASA Launches IBEX Mission to Outer Solar System", NASA

Staff, "NASA launches probe to study edge of solar system", AFP

Fact Sheet, "NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission", NASA