China’s space programme plans to launch first mission to the sun next year
- Satellite will monitor solar activity for several years, including the peak of a new cycle
- Probe will be able to send early warning of damage to the Earth’s electromagnetic atmosphere
China is planning to launch its first solar mission next year.
The probe, code-named the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), is scheduled for lift-off in the first half of 2022. Orbiting 720km (447 miles) above the Earth it will “perform 24-hour continuous observation” for at least four years, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday.
The probe would carry a magnetic detector, a solar telescope and an X-ray imager to track the sun’s magnetic fields and stormy activities, which were the “key to the space weather forecast”, Gan Weiqun, the mission’s chief scientist, told Xinhua.
More than 70 solar exploration satellites have been launched globally since the 1960s, and the mission is expected to “plug China’s gap in the field”, according to the report.
The probe will monitor solar storms “at least 40 hours ahead of their arrival … which is expected to facilitate early warnings of damage to the Earth’s electromagnetic environment”.
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are the most two violent eruptions that scientists believe originate from the sun’s magnetic field.