The PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission is designed to image and track sunlight scattered off of free electrons in the boundary zone between the outer solar corona and the young solar wind and to track in 3D coronal mass ejections that can drive large space weather events near Earth. The primary scientific objectives are to understand: (1) how coronal structures become the ambient solar wind; and (2) the evolution of transient structures that punctuate the young solar wind such as large coronal mass ejections, shocks, and other transient effects.
The baseline mission configuration consists of a constellation of four suitcase-sized spacecraft: PUNCH Narrow Field Imager satellite (PUNCH-NFI) and the three PUNCH Wide Field Imager satellites (PUNCH-WFI-1, PUNCH-WFI-2, and PUNCH-WFI-3).
Version:2.6.1
The PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission is designed to image and track sunlight scattered off of free electrons in the boundary zone between the outer solar corona and the young solar wind and to track in 3D coronal mass ejections that can drive large space weather events near Earth. The primary scientific objectives are to understand: (1) how coronal structures become the ambient solar wind; and (2) the evolution of transient structures that punctuate the young solar wind such as large coronal mass ejections, shocks, and other transient effects.
The baseline mission configuration consists of a constellation of four suitcase-sized spacecraft: PUNCH Narrow Field Imager satellite (PUNCH-NFI) and the three PUNCH Wide Field Imager satellites (PUNCH-WFI-1, PUNCH-WFI-2, and PUNCH-WFI-3).
| Role | Person | StartDate | StopDate | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | PrincipalInvestigator | spase://SMWG/Person/Craig.E.DeForest |