JAXA puts Solar-B into orbit to study Sun

In an attempt to help scientists gain better knowledge of violent solar activity that has devastating effects on the Earth, Japan on Saturday has successfully launched a satellite to explore the Sun's magnetic field.

In a joint mission with the United States and Britain to explore the Sun, Japan’s national aerospace agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully launched the Solar B with an M-V rocket from Uchinoura Space Center (USC) in Kagoshima prefecture in southern Japan, early Saturday.

The rocket, which loaded the Solar-B and lifted off at 6:36 a.m. (Japan Standard Time, JST.), succeeded in putting the satellite into orbit, the aerospace agency JAXA said.

Solar-B was separated with the M-V rocket and injected into orbit shortly before 8 a.m. as scheduled, the agency said.

Japan's third solar observation satellite, Solar -B, was given the Japanese name Hinode (sunrise), the agency said. It comprises SOT, a large optical telescope with 50-cm aperture, and two X-ray / extreme ultraviolet imagers, XRT and EIS. By exploring visible surface of the Sun (photosphere) and the solar corona concurrently, Solar-B’s objective is to understand the origin and consequences of various active phenomena which take place in the corona.

JAXA's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science is accountable for the spacecraft and the optical telescope, while the other two science instruments were assembled under Japanese supervision, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from America and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) from the United Kingdom.

In order to prohibit as much as contingent variation of heat input to the spacecraft, which is indispensable for achieving ultra-high spatial resolution of SOT (0.2 seconds of arc), and to realize long-term uninterrupted observation of the Sun, Solar-B is designed to take the sun-synchronous polar orbit. The satellite will operate in a 96-minute polar sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth. From this orbit, Solar-B will be able to observe the Sun continuously for 8 months in a year, during the planned mission of three years.

The Japanese space agency summed up satellite's observation goals into four: creation and destruction of the Sun's magnetic field, modulation of the Sun's luminosity, generation of UV and X radiation, in addition to eruption and expansion of the Sun's atmosphere.

"The satellite will start its observation of the Sun's activity about two months later," Satoki Kurokawa, a spokesman for JAXA said. If the mission gets successful, it will provide a better understanding of the Sun-Earth environment.

The total production cost of Solar-B, weighing 900 kg and having size: 1.6 x 1.6 x 4.0 m, amounted to around 22 billion yen (US$189.66 millions), of which Japan contributed nearly 13 billion yen (US$112.07 millions).