A NASA-funded miniature satellite built by LASP and University of Colorado Boulder students will launch at 5:55 p.m. EST on Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the start of a six-month-long mission to study solar flares and the powerful X-rays emitted by the sun.
The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSat, which was built by students in CU-Boulder’s Department of Aerospace Engineering (AES) in collaboration with LASP researchers, will help shed light on how powerful electromagnetic emissions from the sun impact the Earth’s atmosphere, an effect known as space weather.
