Mars-bound Instrument Detects Solar Burst's Effects

The largest solar particle event since 2005 has been detected by the radiation-monitoring instrument aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, on its way from Earth to Mars. RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler, science program director in the Space Studies Department at Southwest Research Institute said they only have a few hours of data downloaded from the RAD so far, but they clearly see the event.

 

The Radiation Assessment Detector, inside the mission's Curiosity rover tucked inside the spacecraft, is measuring the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut on a potential Mars mission. It has measured an increase resulting from a 22 January 2012v solar storm observed by other NASA spacecraft. No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.

 

A NASA Goddard Space Weather Lab animation of the CME illustrates how the disturbance impacts Earth, Mars and several spacecraft. Solar storms can affect the Earth's aurorae, satellites, air travel and GPS systems; no harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.
 
The Mars Science Laboratory, launched 26 November 2011, will land a sophisticated car-sized rover called Curiosity on the surface of the planet in August 2012. Loaded with 10 instruments including RAD, Curiosity will traverse the landing site looking for the building blocks of life and characterizing factors that may influence life, such as the harsh radiation environment expected on Mars. He expects this SPE encounter is particularly exciting in light of the alignment between the Earth, MSL and Mars right now and for the next few months. The RAD data, collected from inside the capsule, can be compared with the data from other spacecraft.
 
This event has also been seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Geostationary Operational Environment Satellites, the Advanced Composition Explorer, and the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecraft in Earth orbit as well as the Solar Heliospheric Observatory flying between Earth and the sun.
 
SwRI, together with Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, built RAD with funding from the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and Germany's national aerospace research center, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt.
 
The Mars Science Laboratory is a project of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech. The mission's rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.