NASA to Release Two Mission for Exploring Sun

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agreed on Wednesday, on two missions to explore the sun and the system that drives space weather near earth.

These missions are the Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon Mission, or EUVST, and the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer, or EZIE.

According to NASA report, The EUVST Epsilon Mission will be led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), along with other international partners. It is targeted for launch in 2026. The EUVST is a solar telescope that will study the manner in which the solar atmosphere releases solar wind and drives eruptions of solar material.

Meanwhile, NASA will contribute hardware including an intensified UV detector and support electronics, spectrograph components, a guide telescope, software, and a slit-jaw imaging system to the mission. This will help provide context for the spectrographic measurement. NASA will contribute $55 million to the EUVST mission budget.

On other hand, EZIE is an investigation comprising a trio of CubeSats that will study the source of and changes in the auroral electrojet, an electric current circling through Earth’s atmosphere around 60-90 miles above the surface and extending into the Earth’s magnetosphere. Also, EZIE will launch no earlier than June 2024. The total budget for the EZIE mission is $53.3 million.