Kuafu-1 satellite launched by China to unravel secrets of the Sun

China has launched a new observatory that will look into the Sun. It has launched the satellite after successfully integrating its under-construction Space Station and approving the next phase of its lunar missions. 

The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) was launched onboard a Long March-2D rocket. The satellite has been named Kuafu-1, after a giant in Chineses mythology who chased the sun. 

China sent a solar exploration satellite into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sunday, furthering the country's scientific endeavor to unravel the mysteries of the Sun. Read #XinhuaHeadlines for more: https://t.co/ZOKGMIdyi9 pic.twitter.com/rhP4Bgs4tW

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) October 9, 2022

Kuafu-1 satellite launch: Significance

1. The satellite has been established in an orbit of about 720 kilometers above the planet.
2. The observatory is placed higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.
3. A six-month-long commissioning phase will start after the satellite is placed in orbit. Later the science operations will commence.
4. The spacecraft will examine the causality between the solar magnetic field and two major eruptive phenomena, coronal mass ejection and solar flares.
5. The satellite is launched with three major instruments, including Lyman-alpha Solar Telescope(LST), the Full-disk Vector MagnetoGraph(FMG) and the Hard X-ray Imager(HXI).
6. The objective for the mission is described as 1M2B, where M refers to the solar magnetic field and two Bs are known for two violent bursts, the coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the solar flares.
7. The spacecraft is capable of probing the Sun 24 hours daily for most of the year. Its longest daily time-out is not more than 18 mins when running through the shadow of Earth each day from May to August.

Kuafu-1: All you need to know

1. Kuafu-1 will operate for 96 per cent of the year, and since it is placed outside the planet, it will get affected by Earth’s atmosphere.
2. It is the fourth big mission exploring the Sun after the Nasa Parker Solar Probe.
3. Parker Solar Probe has been getting closer to the Sun alongside European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter and China’s Xihe peobe, launched in 2021.
4. The satellite is made to be in service for four years and the mission will beam back about 500 gigabytes of data daily.
5. The spacecraft will reveal the Sun’s secrets and new features that probel solar flares and coronal mass ejections. 

Background

Astronomers have been trying to better understand these phenomena, which affect space weather and their understanding is critical to saving assets in space like the International Space Station and astronauts.

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