|
 March
27, 2000 -- NASA’s newest space weather probe lifted
off March 25 from the Western Range at Vandenberg AFB, CA at
12:34 p.m. PST. The "Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global
Exploration" (IMAGE) spacecraft
separated from the Delta II third stage about 56 minutes after
launch and is now in an elliptical orbit, ranging from 1,000
kilometers to 45,871 kilometers above Earth.
"The skies cleared, then our hearts lifted with the IMAGE
spacecraft; on time, on budget, on the start of a new era in
space physics at the Earth," said onlooker Dennis Gallagher,
a plasma physicist from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,
who attended the launch along with other members of the IMAGE
science team.
Right: Dennis Gallagher (NASA/MSFC)
snapped this picture of IMAGE soaring into space aboard a Delta
rocket on March 25, 2000.
"The spacecraft appears to be healthy with all systems performing
nominally," said IMAGE project manager Frank Volpe at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "We are looking
forward to a great science mission."
Instruments
onboard the IMAGE spacecraft will provide scientists with never-before-seen
global images of the Earth’s magnetosphere -- an area of
space around our planet that is controlled by Earth’s magnetic
field. Scientists expect the mission to revolutionize their understanding
of the magnetosphere and to greatly improve space weather forecasting.
"[Now that it's in orbit] there will be a 40 day
period while the antennas for the radio plasma imager are deployed,"
explained Gallagher. "They're 500 meters tip to tip. As
we reel them out, we have to continuously respin the spacecraft
because it's spin-stabilized."
After the 40 day setup period, IMAGE will begin using its trio
of neutral atom imagers, a far-ultraviolet imaging system, an
extreme ultraviolet imager and a radio plasma imager to make
movies of the magnetosphere. This unique approach will allow
scientists to view, for the first time, the ‘big picture’
rather than capturing limited, local measurements at far-flung
points in space.
 Stay tuned to Science@NASA
for science updates from the IMAGE mission. Please see our earlier
articles "Space Weather Mission
Nears Launch." and "The
RADAR Cop in Space." to learn more.
Right: An artist's concept of IMAGE in orbit. Click
for IMAGE animations, courtesy of Goddard Space Flight Center.
IMAGE is NASA’s first Medium-class Explorer (MIDEX)
mission under the Agency’s Explorer Program. The principal
institution for IMAGE is the Southwest Research Institute in
San Antonio, which has overall responsibility for IMAGE science,
instrumentation, spacecraft operations and data analysis during
its two-year science mission. SwRI's Jim Burch is the IMAGE Principle
Investigator. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Division in
Sunnyvale, Calif. built and tested the 1,089-pound (494-kilogram)
spacecraft under a contract with SwRI. |
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