Speaker

August 24, 2021: Jim Lux W6RMK: SunRISE — Watching the Sun from 0.1 to 25 MHz

PLEASE NOTE: Because our meeting location is unavailable due to the coronavirus situation, this presentation will be webcast on the internet. See the IMPORTANT NOTE at the top of this page.

NASA's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) is an array of six small spacecraft, each about the size of a toaster oven, forming a radio interferometer that will image the Sun at frequencies below 25 MHz. The mission is in the formulation stage and will be launched no earlier than 2023. SunRISE will help us understand our nearest star and better protect astronauts traveling beyond Earth.  It will study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms — known as solar particle storms — into planetary space. Besides improving our understanding of the solar system, this ultimately provides better information on how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment that astronauts must travel through.

You can read more about SunRISE at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/sun-radio-interferometer-space-experiment.

Jim Lux W6RMK is the Project Manager for SunRISE. Previously he managed the development and operations of DHFR, which measured HF signals from 5-30 MHz in a 500km Earth orbit, above the ionosphere. He was the JPL Principal Investigator for NASA’s SCaN  Testbed, which was installed on the International Space Station from 2012 to 2019, for which he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal. A licensed professional engineer in California, Jim Lux has been at JPL for 20 years, following award winning work in physical special effects for film and TV, design and development of electronic warfare and signals identification systems, and large distributed software systems for database and dispatch applications.