The Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL) is part of the
Lockheed Martin
The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
Advanced Technology Center (ATC) that is known primarily for its scientific work in the field of
solar physics
Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun. It deals with detailed measurements that are possible only for our closest star. It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics, astrophysics, and compu ...
,
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
and
space weather
Space weather is a branch of space physics and aeronomy, or heliophysics, concerned with the time varying conditions within the Solar System, including the solar wind, emphasizing the space surrounding the Earth, including conditions in the ma ...
. The LMSAL team is part of
Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Lockheed Martin Space is one of the four major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It has its headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, with additional sites in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Sunnyvale, California; Santa Cruz, California; Huntsville ...
and has close affiliations with
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
and the solar physics group at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Located in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
, LMSAL is involved in many ground- and space-based missions that study the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
, with a sharp focus on basic research into understanding and predicting space weather and the behavior of the Sun, including its impacts on Earth and climate.
Space weather
Enormous storms on the Sun driven by electromagnetic activity generate space weather that propagates outward across the solar system and can cause severe disturbances of Earth's upper atmosphere and of the near-Earth space environment, with potential catastrophic impacts on ground- and space-based technological infrastructure.
In October 2011 the ATC co-sponsored a workshop entitled "Space Weather Risks and Society" that brought together a broad international spectrum of experts in solar and space weather, industry, economics, regulatory bodies, and emergency management to discuss the societal impacts of space weather, how to avoid or mitigate such impacts, and how to respond to them.
An understanding of space weather and – in particular – its impacts on society are in their infancy, but there is broad agreement that societal sensitivity to high-impact, low-frequency events is obviously substantial. Equally important is the need to thoroughly investigate how space weather impacts various components of our high-tech society, and identify the mechanisms by which it does so.
Solar missions
LMSAL has a 49-year-long heritage of spaceborne solar instruments including:
* 1962 to 1985 – At least 20 NASA sounding rocket flights carrying LMSAL solar and astrophysics payloads were launched.
* 1975 – The Mapping X-Ray Heliometer (MXRH) on NASA's
Orbiting Solar Observatory
The Orbiting Solar Observatory (abbreviated OSO) Program was the name of a series of American space telescopes primarily intended to study the Sun, though they also included important non-solar experiments. Eight were launched successfully into ...
8 satellite
* 1980 – The X-ray polarimeter (XRP) on NASA's
Solar Maximum Mission
The Solar Maximum Mission satellite (or SolarMax) was designed to investigate Sun, Solar phenomena, particularly solar flares. It was launched on February 14, 1980. The SMM was the first satellite based on the Multimission Modular Spacecraft bus ...
satellite
* 1985 – The Solar Optical Universal Polarimeter on
STS-51F
STS-51-F (also known as Spacelab 2) was the 19th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on July 29, 1985, and landed eight days later on Aug ...
space shuttle mission. Dr. Loren Acton of LMSAL served as a payload specialist/astronaut on the mission and operated the instrument during two weeks in space.
* 1991 – The Soft X-ray Telescope on the Japanese
Yohkoh
Yohkoh (, ''Sunbeam'' in Japanese), known before launch as Solar-A, was a Solar observatory spacecraft of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (Japan), in collaboration with space agencies in the United States and the United King ...
satellite
* 1995 – The Michelson Doppler Imager on the ESA/NASA
SOHO
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develop ...
* 1998 – The solar telescope on NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (
TRACE
Trace may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* Trace (Son Volt album), ''Trace'' (Son Volt album), 1995
* Trace (Died Pretty album), ''Trace'' (Died Pretty album), 1993
* Trace (band), a Dutch progressive rock band
* The Trace (album), ''The ...
)
* 2006 – The extreme-ultraviolet imager instruments on NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations (
STEREO
Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...
) spacecraft
* 2006, 2009, 2010 – The Solar X-ray Imagers
SXI on
GOES
Goes () is a city and municipality in the southwestern Netherlands on Zuid-Beveland, in the province of Zeeland. The city of Goes has approximately 27,000 residents.
History
Goes was founded in the 10th century on the edge of a creek: de Korte ...
-N, -O and –P spacecraft
* 2006 – The focal-plane package on the Japanese Hinode (
Solar-B) satellite
* 2010 – The atmospheric imaging assembly and the helioseismic and magnetic imager on NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. Launched on 11 February 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program.
The goal of the LWS program is to develop the ...
(SDO)
* Two of the instruments for the next generation GOES-R satellites – the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (
GLM) and the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (
SUVI
Suvi Suresh (born as Swetha Suresh on 26 September 1987) is an Indian singer with Sri Lankan roots. She was a member of the band S5 launched by the channel SS Music. She shot to fame with the song "Kodana Kodi" from '' Saroja'', composed by Yu ...
) – are currently under construction.
* 2013 – The spacecraft and the science instrument for NASA's
Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph
Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), also called Explorer 94 and SMEX-12, is a NASA solar observation satellite. The mission was funded through the Small Explorer program to investigate the physical conditions of the solar limb, part ...
(IRIS), a Small Explorer Mission.
References
External links
Official website
{{Lockheed Martin
Space science organizations
Lockheed Martin