IRIS Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph

NASA Small Explorer program; the IRIS Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph was designed to obtain high resolution (0.3 arcseconds) high cadence (1 second intervals) imaging and spectra of the sun with its 20-cm telescope, in two far-UV bands (1332-1358A, 1380-1406A) and one near-UV band (2785-2835A). Air dropped in Point Mugu Drop Zone. Particle imaging satellite built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center (ATC) for NASA, USA. Launched 2013.

NASA NSSDC Master Catalog Description

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is a NASA Small Explorer class solar mission. It was launched from a Pegasus XL flying out of Vandenberg AFB in California. The rocket was deployed from an Orbital L-1101 carrier aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 39,000 feet (about 12 km), roughly 100 miles northwest of Vandenberg. The rocket was dropped at 7:27 p.m. PDT on 27 June 2013 (02:27 UT, 28 June).

IRIS is intended to advance Sun-Earth connection studies by tracing the flow of energy and plasma into the corona and heliosphere for which no suitable observations exist. To achieve this IRIS will obtain high-resolution UV spectra and images of the sun's chromosphere, specifically on the non-thermal energy that creates the corona and the solar wind.

IRIS seeks to determine: (1) the types of non-thermal energy which dominate in the chromosphere and beyond; (2) the means by which the chromosphere regulates mass and energy supply to the corona and heliosphere; and, (3) how magnetic flux and matter rise through the lower solar atmosphere, and the role played by flux emergence in flares and mass ejections. To answer these questions, IRIS will utilize a single intrument, a multi-channel imaging spectrograph. See the experiment description for details on the IRIS instrument.