NASA’s HERMES mission has passed a Critical Mission Review

NASA’s HERMES mission has passed a Critical Mission Review

Question: NASA’s HERMES mission, which has passed a critical mission review, will moniter which of the following?
a) Extraterrestrial life
b) Space weather
c) Enemy satellites
d) None of these
Answer: (b)
Related Facts:-

  • On 27 January 2022 NASA’s HERMES mission has passed a critical mission review.
  • HERMES is short name for Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite.
  • It will be mounted outside the Habitat and Logistics Outpost module of NASA’s Gateway Outpost where Artemis astronauts will live and work as they orbit the Moon.
  • HERMES is led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
  • HERMES includes four specialized instruments:

1) NEMISIS: It is a Noise Eliminating Magnetometer Instrument in a Small Integrated System, which measures the magnetic fields around Gateway.
2) MERiT: Miniaturized Electron pRoton Telescope- It measures ions and electrons.
3) EEA: Electron Electrostatic Analyzer- It measures the lower energy electrons that make up most of the solar wind.
4) SPAN-I: The Solar Probe Analyzer for Ions, which measures protons and ions including oxygen.

  • Goddard is providing the NEMISIS, MERiT and EEA instruments and SPAN-I is provided by the University of California, Berkeley.
  • HERMES will monitor space weather, the fluctuating conditions in space driven by the Sun.
  • Space weather includes the continuous stream of particles and magnetic fields, known as the solar wind.
  • Coronal mass ejections from the Sun’s corona flashes of ultra-bright light from solar flares are also associated with space weather.
  • Near-Earth environment get disturbed with these activities originating from the sun.
  • Some of these events pose dangers to astronauts and robotic missions.
  • Experts in NASA say that all these space weather conditions also provide the exciting scientific opportunities to understand our Sun and the space around us.
  • HERMES will study space weather in an especially variable environment.
  • As the Moon orbits Earth each month, it spends about one week inside Earth’s long magnetotail,
  • Magnetotail is the portion of our magnetic field blown back from the Sun like a windsock.
  • When inside the magnetotail, HERMES will be flooded by particles and magnetic fields that have interacted with Earth.
  • The remaining three weeks, when the Moon confronts the unfiltered Sun HERMES will be measuring the solar wind and space weather in conditions closer to pristine interplanetary space.

By – Rajesh Tripathi

Links:-
https://blogs.nasa.gov/hermes/2022/01/28/hermes-mission-passes-key-milestone-moves-toward-launch/
https://24htech.asia/nasas-hermes-mission-passes-key-milestone-moves-toward-launch-s630460.html