NASA is launching a groundbreaking mission today, July 9th, 2024, called the CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment (CURIE). This mission aims to solve a long-standing mystery surrounding the origin of radio waves emitted by the Sun.
Solar radio waves have been discovered since 1942 by British radar operators during the Second World War. In this case, it was classified as military secrets until they were released after the end of the war. While scientists have associated these waves with solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), their exact source within these events remains obscure.
CURIE aims to answer this very question. This will be a first in-space application of low-frequency radio interferometry which will be applied through it unique method. For this mission, two tiny satellites each approximately shoebox-size are being employed circling Earth about three kilometers apart.
The gap is crucial. On-board devices in one satellite measure very small differences between arrival periods of radio signals at specific points on another satellite. These variations help NASA scientists detect where exactly within solar flares and CMEs Waves were originated from. This approach is designed to pinpoint the exact location within solar flares and coronal mass ejections where these radio waves are generated.
“This is a very ambitious and exciting mission,” said the CURIE project contributor, David Sundkvist at the University of California in Berkeley. “This marks a great leap for radio astronomy as it is the first time an interferometer will be used in space.”
The CURIE satellites were developed by Berkeley researchers and will be launched from French Guiana’s Kourou space center operated by European Space Agency (ESA) using Ariane 6 rocket. Once in orbit, these will measure radio signals with wavelengths between 0.1 to 19 MHz which are usually blocked by Earth’s atmosphere hence necessitating observations through missions that are conducted in space.
The success of CURIE will pave way for SunRISE mission, which stands for Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment. In this case, six CubeSats will perform SunRISE function to create a two-dimensional map of solar’s origin radio region.
For instance, understanding how solar activity affects earth magnetosphere or communication systems can be enhanced via this mission. The information obtained from CURIE would feed into future plans on space weather forecasting and spacecraft shielding techniques.
