Utah labs help push NASA missions SunRISE and Artemis II toward launch

Photo: Photo by Jametlene Reskp

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Six small satellites built and tested in Logan have cleared a major pre-launch milestone for a NASA mission designed to listen for solar radio bursts linked to hazardous space weather events.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Jan. 20 that the six “toaster-oven-size” spacecraft for SunRISE — short for Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment — completed a test campaign at Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory, including thermal vacuum, electromagnetic compatibility, and vibration testing.

The vibration tests were designed to simulate launch shaking as closely as possible. “Each spacecraft was loaded with propellant to match launch mass and subjected to vibration testing in all three axes. The objective was to make the simulated vibrations as true to the conditions of launch as possible,” said Jim Lux, SunRISE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Pre- and post-test functional checks were performed, and all six spacecraft aced them.”

JPL said the mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as a rideshare on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket, sponsored by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

After launch, JPL said the satellites will be delivered slightly above geosynchronous orbit — about 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) high — and deploy four telescoping antenna booms per spacecraft, each about 10 feet (2.5 meters) long.

The six spacecraft will fly in formation up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart, and scientists will combine their measurements using interferometry after the satellites communicate via NASA’s Deep Space Network, JPL said.

“Solar radio bursts are triggered after vast quantities of energy stored in the Sun’s magnetic field accelerate solar particles to high speeds,” said Sue Lepri, SunRISE principal investigator at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Tracking these events will not only help space agencies mitigate their damaging effects on astronauts and spacecraft but will also add new science to our growing knowledge base of how space weather is generated and propagates throughout the solar system.”

The SunRISE milestone comes as NASA’s next crewed moon mission, Artemis II, moves toward a launch targeted no earlier than Feb. 6, 2026, according to NASA’s Artemis II mission page.

NASA describes Artemis II as a 10-day crewed lunar flyby that will test the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft with astronauts aboard for the first time. NASA also says the Artemis II crew will travel “farther from Earth and closer to the Moon than any human has been in over half a century.”

Utah is central to Artemis’ rocket hardware. NASA’s reference page on the Space Launch System Solid Rocket Boosters says the twin boosters provide “more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust at launch,” and that the five booster segments are manufactured by Northrop Grumman in Utah and transported by train to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA has also pointed to Utah facilities tied to Orion’s launch abort system. In an April 2022 NASA article, the agency said engineers successfully tested an abort motor built by Northrop Grumman for Orion’s launch abort system at the company’s facility in Promontory, Utah.