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Interface Region Imaging Spectograph (IRIS) satellite in Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, Calif., with the solar telescope and bus structure fully integrated.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
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The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission will provide the most detailed look ever at the sun’s lower atmosphere or interface region. This region, located between the sun’s visible surface and upper atmosphere, is where most of the star’s ultraviolet emission is generated. These emissions impact the near-Earth space environment and Earth’s climate.
The IRIS spacecraft will launch aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus 40 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast.
IRIS carries an ultraviolet telescope that feeds a multi-channel imaging spectrograph. The satellite is the first mission designed to use an ultraviolet telescope to obtain high-resolution images and spectra every few seconds and provide observations of areas as small as 150 miles across the sun.
"Previous observations suggest there are structures in this region of the solar atmosphere 100 to 150 miles wide, but 100,000 miles long," said Alan Title, IRIS principal investigator at Lockheed Martin. "Imagine giant jets like huge fountains that have a footprint the size of Los Angeles and are long enough and fast enough to circle Earth in 20 seconds. IRIS will provide our first high-resolution views of these structures along with information about their velocity, temperature and density,” he added.
NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will provide IRIS mission operations and ground data systems. The Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo, Norway, will provide regular downlinks of science data. And NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center is responsible for launch management.
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