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NASA's SORCE Spacecraft Rides Into Orbit Atop Winged Pegasus
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer, Cape Canaveral Bureau
posted: 04:00 pm ET
25 January 2003
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) was safely delivered into Earth orbit on Saturday, lofted there by a winged Pegasus XL rocket air-dropped over the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida. The $122 million mission is designed to help scientists understand the Sun's role in climate change here on Earth by measuring the amount of solar energy reaching the planet as our nearest star radiates through its various cycles. The launch took place 39,000 feet (11,890 meters) above sea level at a point 100 miles (161 kilometers) east of the Canaveral Spaceport when the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus was released at 3:14 p.m. EST (2014 GMT). After falling five seconds away from its L-1011 carrier aircraft -- dubbed Stargazer -- the three-stage booster ignited its first stage and began an apparently flawless 10-minute climb to orbit. "That's a long time to hold my breath," said Thomas Woods, a co-investigator on the SORCE project from the University of Colorado in Boulder, which partnered with NASA on the mission. "We love space, we love research." Some 250 to 300 scientists, engineers, and students working on the SORCE project gathered at the university on Saturday, nervously awaiting the launch and successful orbiting of the spacecraft. The university's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, better known on campus as LASP, is builder of the SORCE instruments."It's wonderful," LASP director Daniel Baker said after SORCE had arrived in orbit. "It went all amazingly smooth. I couldn't be more pleased with the way things have turned out." SORCE weighs in at a diminutive 633 pounds (287 kilograms). It carries four instruments: a Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM), the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM), Solar Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE) and the Extreme Ultraviolet Photometer System (XPS). The TIM, SIM and SOLSTICE will measure solar irradiance and the solar spectrum. The XPS is built to measure high-energy radiation from the Sun. All the "science speak" adds up to a satellite geared to help scientists understand the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth and the way that energy affects the planet's weather and long-term climate. "SORCE measures the energy input, the energy coming from the sun that drives all of these systems," said Gary Rottman, the SORCE principal investigator. "It does it a new way with brand new instruments, making these measurements with very, very high precision. And in some ways these are the first measurements of this type that will ever be achieved." Once SORCE begins its projected five years of science sleuthing, the data gathered will be managed, processed, and distributed by the University of Colorado's LASP. SPACE.com's Leonard David contributed to this story from Boulder, Colo.
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