Tag Archives: Atlas V

Solar Dynamics Observatory Launch Video

NASA launched the SDO satellite atop an Atlas V rocket, making it the 2nd launch from Cape Canaveral this week.

SDO Launch 589x430 Solar Dynamics Observatory Launch Video photo

Atlas V lifts SDO satellite into space

NASA – The Solar Dynamics Observatory was the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.

SDO is designed to help scientists understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space.

Scientists will measure the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

SDO’s goal is to understand, driving towards a predictive capability, the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity’s technological systems by determining how the Sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured and how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance. Continue reading →

NASA’s 2nd Launch This Week Solar Dynamics Observatory

Atlas V roared to life Thursday morning after yesterday’s launch was aborted due to high winds – video to follow

Atlas V SDO NASA’s 2nd Launch This Week Solar Dynamics Observatory photoNASA – The Atlas V rocket will send the Solar Dynamics Observatory into space on its mission to evaluate the complex mechanisms of the sun.

Liftoff came on-time at 10:23 a.m. EST from Launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.

The SDO spacecraft is in good shape midway through the launch phase that will eventually place it in an elongated orbit reaching more than 21,000 miles high.

Eventually, SDO’s orbit will be circularized and will reach about 22,300 miles in what is called geosynchronous orbit. From that altitude, the spacecraft will point its instruments at the sun and relay the readings instantly to a ground station in New Mexico. Continue reading →