Craft Launched in NASA Study of Solar Wind
A NASA spacecraft called Wind rocketed into orbit Tuesday on a three-year journey to study the electrified particles that stream from the sun.
The unmanned Delta rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 10 miles from the Kennedy Space Center, where shuttle Atlantis awaits a Thursday launch.
Eight instruments--six U.S., one French and the first Russian instrument to fly on an American spacecraft--will analyze solar wind, the energy hurtling from the sun at more than 1 million m.p.h.
Solar wind gusts can cause geomagnetic storms that can disrupt electrical power, radio communications and satellite operations. Scientists hope Wind’s findings will help them foresee outbursts.
In 1996, plans call for Wind to be catapulted out of Earth’s orbit into a circle 200,000 miles in diameter, 1 million miles from Earth and 92 million miles from the sun. At that point, the gravities of Earth and the sun balance and should keep the craft there forever.
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