Missions
NASA's SunRISE mission targets no earlier than mid-2027
Six toaster-oven-size satellites will share a Falcon Heavy ride and listen for radio bursts from the Sun's corona.
NASA's SunRISE mission is targeting a launch no earlier than mid-2027, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
SunRISE, short for Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment, is a heliophysics mission. Its six small satellites, each about the size of a toaster oven, will work together in an orbit just above geosynchronous altitude, roughly 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth. Working together, they will operate as one large radio dish.
Their target is radio bursts from within the Sun's atmosphere, or corona. The mission will track those bursts from that high perch, using six separate receptors as a single instrument.
The launch will be a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon Heavy will also carry a payload for the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command.
That mid-2027 date is a target, not a firm schedule. "No earlier than" means the launch could move later, but not sooner.
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