Unbuckling the belts

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, will develop and operate twin NASA spacecraft to study how the sun interacts with Earth’s radiation belts.

Part of NASA’s Living With a Star Program, the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission will determine how varying inputs of solar energy form or change populations of relativistic electrons and ions in the Earth’s radiation belts, the bands of charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field that extend 20,000 miles around Earth.

After launch, scheduled for 2012, the RBSP spacecraft will measure the distributions of charged particles as well as the electric and magnetic fields that energise, transport or remove the particles within these belts.

Detailed design of the probes will begin this summer, after NASA selects the spacecraft’s science instruments.

According to a statement, the mission’s science results will provide the understanding needed to predict potentially hazardous space weather effects. Furthermore, observations from the spacecraft will be used to improve the characterisation of planetary space environments. Increased knowledge of the space environment and effects of space weather will permit better design and operations of new technology on Earth and in space.