A geomagnetic storm on Earth caused by massive solar radiation temporarily grounded a Blue Origin rocket carrying two of NASA’s twin satellites. Created to measure space weather On Mars.
blue origin … They say it’s a giant New Glenn rocket. ready for takeoff This will be the first major NASA-scale science mission that Jeff Bezos’ space company has undertaken for a paying customer. It also marks the company’s first launch of any kind since New Glenn’s first flight in January.
“However, due to increased solar activity and its potential impact on the EscaPADE spacecraft, NASA will postpone the launch until space weather conditions improve,” the company said on its website Wednesday.
New Glenn, a 32-story-tall, two-stage, high-lift rocket, was scheduled to lift off Sunday from the U.S. Space Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with two Mars-bound Escapad satellites in its payload bay. However, due to thick cloud cover that day, the flight was canceled.
The mission was rescheduled for Wednesday, but Blue Origin The launch was canceled indefinitely. After the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center issued a warning about a severe geomagnetic storm. This storm was caused by a sudden surge of high-energy charged particles thrown into space by a massive eruption on the Sun’s surface. “Corona mass release”.
The resulting bundle of charged particle radiation, or plasma, was measured on Earth on Wednesday at a level of G-4, or “severe,” one level below the highest level of G-5, or “extreme.” The geomagnetic storm was expected to continue at high intensity Thursday.
Geomagnetic storms are known to disrupt radio and satellite communications. It could also increase the density of the atmosphere, creating severe friction and drag on satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, as happened when SpaceX’s 40 newly launched Starlink satellites became inoperable in February 2022.
Increasing levels of charged particles from the sun make it easier for them to escape Earth’s protective magnetic field and collide more violently with molecules in the atmosphere, increasing the range of colorful auroras visible in the night sky, mainly in polar regions.
Appearances of the bright green and pink aurora borealis were reported across an unusually wide area of the United States on Tuesday night, as far south as Texas, Florida and Alabama, with higher latitudes predicted for Wednesday.
Ironically, the twin EscaPADE satellites, which stand for Plasma Escape and Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, are intended to study similar phenomena on Mars at the end of a 22-month journey to Mars.
The two spacecraft, named Blue and Gold, are designed to work together to orbit Mars to analyze how streams of charged solar particles interact with Mars’ relatively weak magnetic field, and how that interaction led to the planet losing much of its atmosphere over billions of years.
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