SDL engineers are pictured in this March 20, 2023, image inspecting the two completed Carruthers ultraviolet cameras before they undergo environmental testing at SDL facilities on USU's Innovation Campus. Environmental testing of the cameras will confirm they will withstand the extreme turbulence during launch and temperatures of space. (Photo Credit: SDL/Allison Bills)
NORTH LOGAN – Two years ago NASA commissioned Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) to develop cameras for a mission to advance our understanding of the exosphere.
Planned for a 2025 launch, the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will include SDL’s two Far Ultraviolet, or FUV, cameras which will be the primary science instruments for the mission.
The exosphere, the outermost layer of the earth’s atmosphere, is about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. It is the point in space where the gravitational pull of Earth and the Sun is equal and opposite and that will allow the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory to maintain a stable orbit as it conducts its scientific mission.
This NASA spacecraft will explore this layer of the atmosphere where Earth meets space.
“This layer of earth’s atmosphere is not well understood,” said Bennett Keller, SDL’s Carruthers program manager, “and the SDL-built cameras will play a crucial role in gathering data to determine its size, shape, density, and how it interacts with Earth and space.”
Another of SDL’s responsibilities for this mission is to build filter wheels for each camera to enable the cameras to examine frequency bands of FUV light to reveal nuances of the atmosphere’s behavior.
Air is extremely thin in the exosphere and since the earth’s gravity is weak, molecules are no longer held in place. The cameras SDL is building for this mission will focus on observing this natural process of atmosphere escape.