Donald Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC December 23, 1998

(Phone: 202/358-1547)

RELEASE: 98-227

NASA SELECTS INVESTIGATIONS FOR JAPANESE SOLAR-B MISSION

NASA today announced selections of three

investigations to be flown on Japan's Institute of Space and
Astronautical Science (ISAS) Solar-B mission planned for
launch in 2004. The Solar-B program will be a multilateral
international collaboration including Japan, the United
States, and the United Kingdom.

The objective of Solar-B is to study the origin of the

Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, and the coupling between
the fine magnetic structure at the Sun¹s surface, the
photosphere, and the dynamic processes occurring in the
corona. The 2004 launch date will enable the mission to make
observations during the simpler, declining phase of the
current activity cycle that is expected to reach its maximum
in about the year 2000.

Solar-B will also represent the second mission in the

Solar-Terrestrial Probe series of the NASA Sun-Earth
Connection theme. The Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere
Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission was first.

As currently envisioned by ISAS, Solar-B will have

three investigations involving a 19.7-inch (50-cm) optical
telescope with sophisticated focal-plane instrumentation, an
X-ray telescope for imaging the high-temperature corona, and
an extreme-ultraviolet imaging spectrometer for diagnosing
events observed. The main telescope will give quantitative
measurements of magnetic fields in features as small as 70
miles in size, 10 times better than other space- or ground-
based magnetic field measurements. ISAS will provide the
major mission elements, including the main telescope,
spacecraft, and launch services, and will be responsible for
overall mission science. The international partners will
provide scientific investigations, which include the design,
development and delivery of flight hardware, participation in
mission operations, and data acquisition and analysis.

The combined Japanese-U.K.-U.S. science teams will

include a Japanese principal investigator responsible for
ensuring that the scientific instruments interface properly
with the spacecraft, and for experiment integration and
mission operations. A U.S. principal investigator will lead
the U.S. teams of co-investigators.

The investigations selected by NASA were awarded a total

of about $3.3 million for concept studies toward
understanding interface requirements by early summer 1999.
Development is scheduled to begin in January 2000.

The investigations selected by NASA are:

* Focal Plane Instrument Package (FPIP) for the optical

telescope, consisting of a broadband filter imager, a
narrowband filter imager, and a spectro-polarimeter.
Development of the FPIP will be led by Dr. Alan Title of the
Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, CA.

* Solar-B X-Ray Telescope (XRT) led by Dr. Leon Golub of

the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA.
XRT will study the million-degree outer atmosphere of the
Sun. XRT is an advanced version of a U.S.-Japanese grazing
incidence instrument on the ISAS Solar-A mission, renamed
Yohkoh after its launch in 1991.

* EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) linking the visible

disk of the Sun to the hot corona. Prof. Leonard Culhane of
the Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory, University College of
London, U.K., is the principal investigator for this
instrument. NASA has selected an American co-investigator
for funding in support of the EIS, Dr. George Doschek of the
Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC.

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council

(PPARC) of the U.K., with the concurrence of ISAS, invited
NASA to provide a U.S. science investigation with hardware
responsibility for participation in its EIS instrument.
 The Project Office for U.S. aspects of the Solar-B
mission is at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, AL.

Information on the Solar-B mission from the Science

Definition Team report can be found on the Internet at:
http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sdt-rpt.htm

Information on ISAS is on its home page at:

http://www.isas.ac.jp/index-e.html

Information on the astronomy program of PPARC is

available at: http://www.pparc.ac.uk/space/index.html

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