A telescope designed to observe and study the solar corona closely has been installed on the International Space Station (ISS). On November 5, this advanced instrument was launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
On Tuesday morning, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), led by President Yoon Young Bin, and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), headed by Director Park Young Deuk, announced that the solar coronagraph (CODEX, COronal Diagnostic EXperiment) was successfully mounted on the ISS.
CODEX was installed on the external payload platform ELC3-3 using Canadarm, the ISS’s robotic arm, from Sunday to Tuesday. After the installation, power was supplied, and communication was enabled. It will conduct solar observation missions for six months to two years, following a one-month testing period.
CODEX will transmit its observational data to NASA’s White Sands Ground Terminal, relaying it through the Marshall Space Flight Center to the CODEX data center at the Goddard Space Flight Center and KASI’s Space Environment Monitoring Center.
A coronagraph is a specialized telescope designed to observe the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, the corona. Because the sun’s surface, or photosphere, is exceptionally bright, observing the corona from Earth is challenging except during a total solar eclipse. Scientists must artificially block the sun’s disk to observe it under normal conditions.
CODEX, jointly developed by Korean and American research teams, is a next-generation coronagraph. It can simultaneously observe and visualize the solar corona’s shape, temperature, and velocity—characteristics that previously required separate observations.
After a month-long testing phase on the ISS, CODEX will operate for six months to two years. By precisely measuring the temperature and speed of the solar corona, which extends three to ten times the sun’s radius, researchers aim to unlock the mysteries of coronal heating and solar wind acceleration—long-standing challenges in solar physics.
This space-based technology can detect coronal mass ejections, a key factor in space weather, and monitor their trajectories to help protect valuable space assets.
NASA will directly manage and operate CODEX, while KASI plans to collaborate remotely with the Goddard Space Flight Center to establish observation plans and monitor operational conditions.
The research team anticipates starting full-scale observation missions in January 2025. The data collected will be used to analyze the solar wind acceleration process and coronal heating mechanisms.
Most Commented