For the first time, a NASA mission to study space weather will live on a commercial satellite
At the end of this month, NASA is launching a new mission to space to better understand how energetic particles mingle in the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere in what’s known as space weather. And for the first time, the mission won’t rely on a full satellite to gather data from orbit, but on a single scientific instrument that will live on a commercial satellite.
The host probe is SES-14, a satellite built and controlled by Luxembourg-based operator SES. When it launches at the end of January on a European Ariane 5 rocket, SES-14 will eventually climb to an orbit about 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, with the NASA instrument positioned toward our planet. From there, the instrument, called GOLD, will gather data about the…
