NASA Selects New Heliophysics Missions for Development

NASA has selected two new heliophysics missions for development. The first mission, CINEMA, or Cross-scale Investigation of Earth's Magnetotail and Aurora, has been chosen to advance to Phase B, which includes planning and design for flight and mission operations.

Robyn Millan from Dartmouth College leads the CINEMA mission, which aims to study how plasma energy flows into Earth's magnetosphere. This mission will utilize a constellation of nine small satellites equipped with instruments including an energetic particle detector, an auroral imager, and a magnetometer, all operating in a polar low Earth orbit.

The mission has been awarded approximately 28 million dollars to enter Phase B, which will last ten months, with a potential launch no earlier than 2030. The second mission, CMEx, or Chromospheric Magnetism Explorer, has been selected for an extended Phase A study to refine its design.

Led by Holly Gilbert from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, CMEx will employ UV spectropolarimetric instrumentation to diagnose the lower layers of the Sun's chromosphere, aiming to understand solar eruptions and their origins.

The cost for the extended Phase A study is set at 2 million dollars and will last 12 months. These missions, arising from a one-year concept study under the 2022 Heliophysics Explorers Program Small-class Explorer Announcement of Opportunity, underscore NASA's commitment to improving predictions of solar events that can impact satellites and human activities in space.

For more information on NASA heliophysics missions, visit science.nasa.gov/heliophysics.