Using innovative technology and a new algorithm to predict the behavior of solar flares, NASA’s Hi-C Flare mission successfully launched a rocket to take detailed images of the Sun. This mission marks a major advance in the study of solar phenomena, involving multiple instruments and collaboration between several research institutions.

After months of preparations and years since its last flyby, the upgraded High Resolution Coronal Imager Flare mission (Hi-C Flare for short) took to the skies for a never-before-seen solar flare.

The low-noise cameras, built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are part of the cutting-edge instrumentation aboard the Black Brant IX sounding rocket, which launched April 17 from the Poker Flat Research Area. in Alaska. Using the new technology, the researchers hoped to study the extreme energies associated with solar flares. The Hi-C Flare experiment was conducted by Marshall.

Technology launch and testing

“This is a pioneering campaign,” said Sabrina Savage, principal investigator for Hi-C Flare at Marshall. “Launching solar probes to test new technologies optimized for observing radiances was not even an option until now.”

This was the third iteration of the Hi-C instrument to fly, but the first to fly with co-traveling instruments, including COOL-AID (Coronal OverLapagram – Aided Imaging Diagnostics), CAPRI-SUN (High Frequency Low Energy Pass Band x – Ray detector). an integrated field of view of the full Sun) and SSAXI (Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager). After a month of payload integration and testing in White Sands, New Mexico, researchers completed final integration at the Poker Flat Research Area in Alaska.

Wage campaign challenges and achieve success

Each morning during the two-week window of the launch campaign, the team spent about five hours preparing the experiment for launch, and then spent up to four hours monitoring solar data to detect a class C5 or higher flare with a longer duration from the rocket. Flight. The launch finally took place on the penultimate day of the campaign window.

“The Sun was fairly quiet throughout the campaign despite many active regions,” Savage said. “Both teams were worried we wouldn’t be able to launch, but we ended up getting a nice, long-lasting class M flash just before the window closed.”

Rocket flight and data collection

The Hi-C Flare mission was launched at 14:14 AKDT, just one minute after the FOXSI-4 (Focusing Optical X-ray Solar Camera) mission operated by the University of Minnesota. Once airborne, sensors on the Hi-C Flare rocket pointed cameras at the Sun and stabilized the instruments. The shutter doors were then opened and the cameras were allowed to collect about five minutes of data before the doors closed and the rocket fell back to Earth.

The rocket landed in the Alaskan tundra and remained there until conditions were safe enough for the team to retrieve it and begin processing the collected data.

“For the Tundra launch, we have to wait a few days for the device to get back to us and then it has to dry enough to power on,” Savage said. “It’s been an anxious few days, but the data is great and worth the wait.”

Innovation and data processing

Researchers didn’t just test new technologies either. They also used a new algorithm to predict the behavior of the solar flare, allowing them to launch the rocket at the perfect time.

“It’s very difficult to catch flashes in action because you can’t predict them,” said Genevieve Vigil, Hi-C 3 and COOL-AID technical director and operator lead at Marshall. “We had to wait for the solar flare to start and then run it as is. “Nobody’s ever tried this before.”

Fortunately, his methods were successful.

“We are still processing data from all four devices, but the data from Hi-C 3 and COOL-AID already looks great,” Savage said.

“The COOL-AID data are the first spectrally clear image we know of in the warm spectral line,” said Hi-C Flare Marshall Project Scientist Amy Weinbarger.