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NASA Plans to Park More Craft at Sun-Earth Balance Point
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posted: 06:00 pm ET
19 January 2000
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By Leonard DavidWASHINGTON -- NASA plans to launch a network of solar and Earth science satellites into mysterious parking lots in space known as Lagrangian points in order to learn more about how the sun works and affects life on Earth. The program, called "Living with a Star," features a fleet of spacecraft called Solar Sentinels. They will be anchored at two sets of L-points where the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth balance out. Some of those positions are ideal to study the sun's far side -- as seen from Earth -- to provide full viewing and stereo imaging of the sun as it spins in space. "If we are to really understand solar weather, we have to monitor the sun through a whole solar cycle," said George Withbroe, NASA's science program director for sun-Earth studies. "L-points are new real estate for doing interesting things, for looking out to the stars and looking inside the solar system to study our own star," he told Space.com. The Living with a Star program is focused on understanding how a star like our sun works and how it affects humanity and the environment of Earth. Also to be addressed is how solar activity would affect humans onboard the International Space Station or future manned missions to Mars. "Humanity has become more interested in the total environment, all the issues of global change and weather. There's no question that humans are affecting the climate of the Earth. Space is another place where humans operate as well, " Withbroe told Space.com. The field of solar weather includes the study of solar storms that churn out energetic particles capable of disrupting wireless communications, damaging satellites, and wreaking havoc with electric power grids on Earth. Adam Szabo, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. is part of a team studying how L-points can best be used. He says that trying to predict solar storms is growing in importance. Having the ability to keep a constant eye on the sun from various L-points is key to providing maximum warning to Earth. "There will be more satellites, more telecommunications, more cells phones," Szabo said. "We will be more vulnerable 10 years from now, technologically speaking. So we will need to have an improved warning system in place."
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