NASA is preparing to launch an orbital observatory that can pick apart the inner workings of the sun. The project is an attempt to improve predictions of space weather events that can impact GPS and other satellite systems, radio transmissions and power grids on Earth.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is part of a NASA program called "Living With a Star," which is focused on understanding how the sun impacts life on Earth.
SDO arrived in Florida last week to begin final testing and fueling for launch in November from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Its mission is slated to begin just as the sun shifts into a new 11-year cycle. The next period of maximum activity is expected to peak in May 2013.
"We would really like to put our instruments on a relatively unblemished sun and look what happens as we go into solar max," SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell told Discovery News.
Since the last solar max in 2002, modern life has become more dependent on GPS, mobile phones and other technologies that are vulnerable to geomagnetic outbursts and other solar events.
Currently, space weather forecasters have about an hour's lead time to predict geomagnetic storms. To develop longer-range forecasts, solar physicists use computer models based on observations of the sun's surface.
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