US space agency NASA has launched its Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer 3 (MinXSS-3) instrumentation aboard the InspireSat-1 small satellite to help study solar flares.
Also known as the Dual Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer, or DAXSS, it is the third of three NASA-funded MinXSS CubeSats. It will spend up to a year in low-Earth orbit studying x-rays coming from flares on the Sun.
MinXSS-3’s observations, which can record even very weak solar flares, will help scientists better understand the physics behind solar flares as well as how such events heat up material in the Sun’s corona.
The MinXSS development program was funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate CubeSat Initiative Program and implemented by the University of Colorado Boulder under the leadership of principal investigator Tom Woods. MinXSS-3 was launched on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Polar Space Launch Vehicle C.
