CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer, also Explorer 82 or UNEX-2) was a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Explorer program satellite. It was launched on 12 January 2003 from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg S ...

aboard a

Delta II Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas, and sometimes known as the Thorad Delta 1. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family, derived directly from the Delta 3000, and entered service in ...

with the larger satellite ICESat, and had an intended mission duration of one year. CHIPS was the second of NASA's University Explorer (UNEX) mission class. It performed

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectro ...

from 90 to 250

Angstrom The angstrom (; ) is a unit of length equal to m; that is, one ten-billionth of a metre, a hundred-millionth of a centimetre, 0.1 nanometre, or 100 picometres. The unit is named after the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström (1814–18 ...

(9 to 26-nm)

extreme ultraviolet Extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV or XUV) or high-energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths shorter than the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line from 121 nm down to ...

(EUV) light.

Mission

The primary objective of the science team, led by principal investigator Mark Hurwitz, was to study the million-degree gas in the local

interstellar medium The interstellar medium (ISM) is the matter and radiation that exists in the outer space, space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as cosmic dust, dust and cosmic rays. It f ...

. CHIPS was designed to capture the first spectra of the faint, extreme ultraviolet glow that is expected to be emitted by the hot interstellar gas within about 300 light-years of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

, a region often referred to as the

Local Bubble The Local Bubble, or Local Cavity, is a relative superbubble, cavity in the interstellar medium (ISM) of the Orion Arm in the Milky Way. It contains the List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest stars and brown dwarfs and, among others, the ...

. Surprisingly, these measurements produced a null result, with only very faint EUV emissions detected, despite theoretical expectations of much stronger emissions. It was the first U.S. mission to use

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

for end-to-end satellite operations control.

Spacecraft

The

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

's Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) served as CHIP's primary

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

and manufactured the CHIPS

spectrograph An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...

, designed to perform all-sky spectroscopy. Other ground network support was provided by ground stations at

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk, VA, Norfolk. The facility is operated ...

(WFF),

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and

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, Australia. CHIPS's

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are less customized than specially-produced satelli ...

was manufactured by

SpaceDev SpaceDev, a part of the "Space Systems Business" of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is prominent for its spaceflight and Microsatellite (spaceflight), microsatellite work. It designed and built components for the hybrid rocket motors for Paul Allen ...

Launch

CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer) is a NASA

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...

spacecraft that was launched by a

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

from

at 00:45:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on 13 January 2003. The , triaxially-stabilized spacecraft has a

covering the 9–26 nm wavelength band at a resolution of 0.1 nm, scanning the entire sky in chunks of 5° x 27° segments during each orbit. The targets are the hot and diffuse

nebula A nebula (; or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in ...

at about a million degrees temperature. The band covers several strong emission lines.

Solar observatory

In September 2005, the spacecraft was converted to a solar observatory. From 3 April 2006 to 5 April 2008, CHIPS performed 1458 observations of the Sun.

End of mission

Satellite operations were terminated in 11 April 2008 due to budget constraints.

References

External links

"Good-bye Mr. CHIPS"
Chris Thompson, East Bay Express, 2 July 2008 * * * {{Portal bar, Spaceflight Satellites orbiting Earth Explorers Program Satellite Internet access Spacecraft launched in 2003 Space telescopes Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets Extreme ultraviolet telescopes