SunRISE: Monitoring Solar Radiation Storms From Space (Mission Overview)

NASA’s SunRISE mission is getting ready to reveal the turbulent workings of our star like never before. Short for Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment, SunRISE is an array of six toaster-size spacecraft that will work together to track solar activity and help scientists better understand space weather events.

Our active, churning Sun often sends unpredictable bursts of energy across the solar system in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections that can generate beautiful auroras at Earth. While traveling through the Sun’s atmosphere, these energetic events can trigger secondary bursts of solar energetic particles, causing solar radiation storms. At Earth, these storms can damage orbiting spacecraft or unprotected astronauts. SunRISE will map the radio wave emissions that accompany such events for the first time.

In this mission overview, scientists and engineers explain how the mission will help them better understand – and perhaps one day, predict – solar eruptions.