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| Artist's rendering of Van Allen Probes [Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center] |
Washington: NASA has renamed a recently launched mission that studies
Earth's radiation belts as the Van Allen Probes in honor of the late James Van
Allen. Van Allen was the head of the physics department at the University of
Iowa who discovered the radiation belts encircling Earth in 1958.
The new name of the
mission, previously called the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), was
announced Friday during a ceremony at the Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.
"James Van Allen
was a true pioneer in astrophysics," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and
associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's
headquarters in Washington. "His ground breaking research paved the way
for current and future space exploration. These spacecraft now not only honor
his iconic name but his mark on science."
During his career,
Van Allen was the principal investigator for scientific investigations on 24
Earth satellites and planetary missions, beginning with the first successful
American satellite, Explorer I, and continuing with Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11.
He also helped develop the first plans for an International Geophysical Year
was held in 1957. Van Allen, who worked at APL during and after World War II,
also is credited with discovery of a new moon of Saturn in 1979, as well as
radiation belts around that planet.
Launched Aug. 30 from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Van Allen Probes comprise the
first dual-spacecraft mission specifically created to investigate the radiation
belts that surround Earth. These two belts encircle the planet and are filled
with highly charged particles.
The belts are
affected by solar storms and coronal mass ejections and sometimes swell
dramatically. When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications, GPS
satellites and human spaceflight activities.
"After only two
months in orbit, the Van Allen Probes have made significant contributions to
our understanding of the radiation belts," says APL Director Ralph Semmel.
"The science and data from these amazing twin spacecraft will allow for
more effective and safe space technologies in the decades to come. APL is proud
to have built and to operate this new resource for NASA and our nation, and we
are proud to have the mission named for one of APL's original staff."
Operators have
powered up all flight systems and science instruments on the probes. Data about
the particles that swirl through the belts, and the fields and waves that
transport them, are being gathered by five instrument groups designed and
operated by teams at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark;
University of Iowa in Iowa City; University of Minnesota in Minneapolis;
University of New Hampshire in Durham; and the National Reconnaissance Office
in Chantilly, Va.
The probes will spend
two years looping through every part of both Van Allen belts. By having two
spacecraft in different regions of the belts at the same time, scientists
finally will be able to gather data from within the belts themselves, learning
how they change over space and time. In addition, a space weather broadcast
will transmit selected data from those instruments around the clock, giving
researchers a check on current conditions near Earth.
The Van Allen Probes
comprise the second mission in NASA's Living With a Star program to explore
aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and
society.