The Naval Research Laboratory and NASA are preparing a joint experiment that will study solar energetic particles posing harm to U.S. Navy satellites and future manned space exploration missions.

The Ultraviolet Spectro-Coronagraph Pathfinder will carry a novel solar telescope to collect signals at the Sun’s corona region where SEPs originate from a near geosynchronous-Earth orbit , NRL said Tuesday.

UVSC Pathfinder will help researchers understand how the Sun generate SEPs and improve space weather forecasting to protect U.S. assets in space.

“These powerful particles can wreak havoc with spacecraft and expose astronauts to dangerous radiation,” explained Leonard Strachan, Jr., the mission’s principal investigator at NRL.

The official added that the instrument will validate the capability a new coronagraph design with five apertures that carry their own occulter to collect improved signals from the Sun.

“If we can prove it works, then we can think about how to miniaturize the instrument and possibly deploy them to multiple locations in the Solar System,” shared Strachan.

USVC Pathfinder will launch on Dec. 4 as part of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-3 onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket from Florida.

NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards.

DART, an autonomous spacecraft built and managed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, will intentionally collide with a non-threatening known asteroid, Dimorphos, with the goal of slightly changing its motion and trajectory, NASA said.

Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, said, “In addition to all the ways NASA studies our universe and our home planet, we’re also working to protect that home, and this test will help prove out one viable way to protect our planet from a hazardous asteroid should one ever be discovered that is headed toward Earth.”

The collision will occur between September and October 2022 and is expected to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by several minutes. The collision will also test the effectiveness of kinetic impact as a reliable method for future asteroid deflection.

DART is equipped with a Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), which will turn on in one week to provide images from the Falcon 9 rocket, as well as a Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real Time Navigation (SMART Nav) for identifying the asteroids.

Additionally, the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube is aboard the rocket and will be released prior to the collision to capture images of the impact and its immediate effects. 

The European Space Agency’s Hera project is slated to conduct a survey of the asteroids approximately four years after the impact.

The launch occurred ahead of schedule, as it was previously planned for Nov. 27.

Congress has committed $6.2 million to advance the development of a new optical telescope complex for characterizing space objects at geosynchronous Earth orbit and beyond in Socorro, New Mexico.

The money enables New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to complete the first phase of the $30 million Magdalen Ridge Observatory Interferometer project, Air Force Research Laboratory, the funding contract manager, said Monday.

Once completed in 2026, MROI will feature three telescopes and two scientific instruments that promise more efficient imaging and higher resolution photos than existing arrays.

“If successful, this effort will enable us to leverage new, innovative sensing instruments that, while directly advancing astronomical sciences, could also augment space domain awareness and defense,” explained Brian Engberg, head of AFRL’s space control branch.

Van Romero, vice president for research and professor of physics at NMT, noted that the observatory will enable the assessment of orbiting man-made objects and the study of various phenomena in deep space.