Sorce

SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment

General

Designation	27651 / 03004A
Launch date	25 Jan 2003
Country of origin	United States
Mission	Observation of high atmosphere
Perigee/Apogee	640 km
Inclination	40°
Period
Launch vehicle	Pegasus XL #33
Launch site	Cape Canaveral

Operated by NASA, designed by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Worth $85 million.

End of life

Out of service	25 Feb 2020
Cause	Decommissioned
Decay

External resources

sat-index articles

http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/

Specifications

Prime contractor	OSC
Platform	Leostar-2
Mass at launch	315 kg
Mass in orbit
Dimension
Solar array
Stabilization	3-axis
DC power	EOL: 730 W
Design lifetime	5 years

S-band uplink at 2 kbps, downlink at 1.5 Mbps. TDRS compatible.

Will carry four instruments to study and measure solar irradiance, the main source of energy in the Earth's atmosphere. The SORCE programme merges two previous efforts: the Solar-Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment/Solar Atmospheric Variability Explorer (SOLSTICE/SAVE) mission and the Total Solar Irradiance Mission (TSIM).

Payload

Total Irradiation Monitor (TIM): covers all visual and infrared wavelengths. 7.9 kg.

Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM): rotating Fery prism spectrometer with a bolometer output that covers the 200-2,000 nm band at a resolution of a few nanometers. 22 kg

SOLar STellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE): UV grating spectrometers with photomultiplier detectors that cover the 115-320 nm band at a resolution of 0.1 nm. 36 kg

Xuv Photometer System (XPS): photometer to monitor the x-ray and UV band at 1-34 nm. 3.6 kg