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D.L. Jones (JPL/Caltech), R. MacDowall, N. Gopalswamy, M. Kaiser, M. Reiner, L. Demaio (GSFC), K. Weiler (NRL), J. Kasper (MIT), S. Bale (UCB), R. Howard (OSC)
The Solar Imaging Radio Array will be proposed to NASA as a Medium Explorer (MIDEX) mission by a team of investigators at GSFC, JPL, NRL, MIT, and UC Berkeley. The main science goal of the mission is imaging and tracking of solar radio bursts, particularly those associated with coronal mass ejections, and understanding their evolution and influence on Earth’s magnetosphere. Related goals are mapping the 3-dimensional morphology of the interplanetary magnetic field and improving the prediction of geomagnetic storms. A number of topics in galactic and extragalactic astrophysics will also be addressed by SIRA. The mission concept is a free-flying array of about 16 small, inexpensive satellites forming an aperture synthesis interferometer in space. By observing from above the ionosphere, and far from terrestrial radio interference, SIRA will cover frequencies between a few tens of kHz up to 15 MHz. This wide spectral window is essentially unexplored with high angular resolution.
Part of this work is being carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.