Tags: NASA, SORCE, Solar Radiation
Publication: RedOrbit.com
Publication Date: 01/24/2013

Artist conception of the SORCE satellite. Image credit: NASA

NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite celebrates its 10th anniversary today, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. The spacecraft, originally intended for an operational life of five years, has offered scientists on Earth a better understanding of our primary star, the sun, and how it affects our planet’s climate.

SORCE has provided important data to study some of the most intense solar eruptions ever seen. It experienced and collected information from a solar minimum at the beginning of 2008, and now, its decade-old body is still working successfully to gather data of a new solar maximum.

The satellite sends data to Earth twice a day. It is received at the University of Colorado, where SORCE was designed and built. Here, undergraduate students working at Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) mission control and scientists analyze the data and its relation to global warming.

SOURCE’s on board instruments have been vital for scientists studying solar irradiance, near-infrared light emitted from the sun, and how energy emitted in some wavelengths of light varies depending on the sun’s overall activity.

Since the satellite has doubled its life expectancy, scientists at the University of Colorado have already started building new instruments, in preparation to the inevitable death of SORCE. Its creators believe the spacecraft will not last more than two to three more years because its battery will probably run out. If SOURCE keeps working through 2014, it will have recorded a complete solar cycle.

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