NASA’s SunRISE: Understanding Solar Particle Storms Using an Array of Cube Satellites

Thursday, Dec. 2 2021, 2:00 pm (MST)

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Speaker: Jim Lux: SunRISE Project Manager, NASA JPL

Jim Lux is the Project Manager for SunRISE – six smallsats forming a radio interferometer that will image the sun at frequencies below 20 MHz. He managed the development and operations of DHFR, which measured HF signals from 5-30 MHz in a 500km orbit, above the ionosphere. Mr. Lux was the JPL Principal Investigator for NASA’s SCaN Testbed, which was installed on the International Space Station from 2012 to 2019, for which he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal. A licensed professional engineer in California, Mr. Lux has been at JPL for 22 years, following award winning work in physical special effects for film and TV, design and development of electronic warfare and signals identification systems, and large distributed software systems for database and dispatch applications.

Abstract

NASA’s Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) is an array of six small spacecraft, each about the size of a toaster oven, forming a radio interferometer that will image the Sun at frequencies below 25 MHz. The mission has begun implementation phase and will be launched no earlier than July 2023. SunRISE will help us understand our nearest star and better protect astronauts traveling beyond Earth. It will study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms — known as solar particle storms — into planetary space. Besides improving our understanding of the solar system, this ultimately provides better information on how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment that astronauts must travel through.