// ORBITAL LOGISTICS AND PROPULSION TERM
Solar Wind
The solar wind is a continuous stream of charged particles, mostly electrons and protons, emitted from the Sun's upper atmosphere.
TECHNICAL DEFINITION
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles, primarily electrons, protons, and alpha particles, continuously ejected from the Sun's corona at high speeds, extending throughout the heliosphere and interacting with planetary magnetospheres and atmospheres.
BACKGROUND
Outer space, or simply space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth's atmosphere and between celestial bodies. It contains ultra-low levels of particle densities, constituting a near-perfect vacuum of predominantly hydrogen and helium plasma, permeated by electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, neutrinos, magnetic fields and dust. The baseline temperature of outer space, as set by the background radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7 kelvins.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIASYNONYMS & ALIASES
- Stellar wind (for other stars)
- solar plasma
- coronal outflow
USAGE NOTE
The solar wind creates the aurora borealis and australis on Earth and can erode the atmospheres of planets without strong magnetic fields.
DEVELOPERS
Organizations developing technology related to Solar Wind.
NASA designs, funds, and operates numerous heliophysics missions specifically to study the Sun and the solar wind, including the Parker Solar Probe, which flies directly through the Sun's corona, and the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which monitors solar wind from the L1 Lagrange point.
APL designed, built, and currently operates the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft for NASA. The laboratory is a world leader in developing spacecraft and instruments capable of surviving extreme environments to study the Sun and solar wind.
ESA develops and operates missions to study the sun and its influence on the solar system. A key mission is the Solar Orbiter (a joint mission with NASA), which carries a suite of instruments to provide close-up views of the Sun and study the solar wind.
SwRI is a leading developer of scientific instruments for space missions. They built the Solar Wind Electron Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) instrument suite for the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Wind Analyser (SWA) for the Solar Orbiter, both designed to directly measure the particles that make up the solar wind.
SSL has a long history of developing instrumentation for heliophysics. They led the development of the FIELDS instrument suite on the Parker Solar Probe, which makes direct measurements of the electric and magnetic fields, plasma waves, and radio emissions within the solar wind.
While focused on fusion energy, PPPL develops technologies directly applicable to solar wind. They research advanced plasma propulsion systems, such as the Direct Fusion Drive, which are based on the same fundamental plasma physics that governs the solar wind.
As a major manufacturer of commercial and government satellites, Maxar develops technologies to protect spacecraft from the harsh space environment. This includes advanced shielding, radiation-hardened electronics, and materials designed to mitigate the long-term damaging effects of solar wind and solar particle events.