NASA's SORCE Satellite Soars Into Space to Catch Some Rays

The Pegasus XL rocket is dropped from the L-1011 aircraft at 3:14 p.m. EST, propelling NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) toward its orbit. Photo courtesy of Eric Roback & Rob Rivers, LaRC

NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) successfully launched Saturday aboard a Pegasus XL rocket.

"We are all tremendously excited about what we will learn about the solar climate connection from SORCE," said Bill Ochs, SORCE Project Manager at Goddard. "We're very proud of the mission team led by the University of Colorado and supported by Orbital Sciences Corporation. This mission is a great example of how NASA, universities, and industry can partner to create successful missions."

Over the next few days, the mission team will ensure the spacecraft is functioning properly. The SORCE science instruments will then be turned on and their health verified. Approximately 21 days after launch, the instruments will start science data collection, and calibration will begin. Once in its final orbital position, SORCE will be approximately 397 miles (640 kilometers) above the Earth SORCE will study the sun's influence on the Earth. It will measure how the sun affects the ozone layer, atmospheric circulation, clouds and oceans.

This mission is a joint partnership between NASA and the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is a principal investigator led mission with NASA providing management and scientific oversight and engineering support. Scientists and engineers at the University of Colorado designed, built, calibrated and tested the four science instruments on the spacecraft.

For more information on the SORCE project, visit: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/