NASA’s Dave McComas joins us to explain Tuesday's big launch, the protective bubble around our solar system, and how space weather could shape the future of Moon and Mars missions.

NASA is set to launch three new missions to enhance understanding of space weather and its effects on Earth and space exploration. The first mission, IMAP, will study the heliosphere—the sun's protective bubble around the solar system—helping to shield against cosmic rays. The second, the Carothers Geocoronal Observatory, will examine Earth's exosphere and how hydrogen interacts with solar wind. The third mission, funded by NOAA, will serve as a continuous space weather sentinel, providing warnings of harmful solar activity.

These missions are designed to improve the safety of satellites and astronauts as humanity pushes further into space, including future missions to the Moon and Mars. The data collected will help scientists understand the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space, and engineers have built the satellites to withstand severe solar storms to ensure uninterrupted data collection.

NASA set to launch three new missions to study space weather

in less than 24 hours, NASA plans to have three new missions in space to study how the sun's weather impacts us here on earth. So David McComas with NASA is with us this morning. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your time. Great to be with you this morning. Great to be with you. Tell us about this mission that's set to launch tomorrow morning. Well, there are three missions that are all launching at once. The first one is called IMAP. It's studying the heliosphere, which is really the protective bubble that's created by the sun around our solar system to protect us all from cosmic rays. The second mission is a Carothers geocoronal observatory, which is looking at the exosphere, the outermost layer of the earth's atmosphere. And we're studying how hydrogen interacts with solar wind and solar activity. And then finally, we have the space weather follow on mission, which is a NOAA funded mission to really be a 24-7 space weather sentinel and provide warnings down to earth if there's going to be harmful solar activity that we need to do something to try to mitigate. It's really interesting stuff. And, you know, last week, all the conversation was about this possibility of life on Mars. How does the impact of space exploration, you know, really put us into this mode of looking at life on Earth and beyond? Yeah. So it turns out that space weather is really, really important for us as we go to try to explore for life outside the solar system. So here on Earth, we're protected by our magnetic field and by our atmosphere from these energetic ions that come from solar storms. But as you try to explore out into space, you're not protected by that. So it's very important for us to understand what the sun is throwing at our satellites and at the astronauts that are on board those satellites. Right. So that we can protect their health and protect their safety. So as we push beyond the limits of the earth and explore the solar system, it's so terribly important that we have these measurements. Wow. And you spoke about the sun. The moon is also obviously a point of emphasis right now, as we intend to return there at some point in the next few years, maybe one day in the near future, going to Mars. How does understanding space weather help with space flight from that perspective? Yeah. So NASA and NOAA work together all the time to predict and respond to anything that's happening on the sun. NOAA has the responsibility of doing that for the nation and NASA has experts who understand how those effects can, as I said, affect the satellites and the spacecraft that our astronauts are traveling on. It's so important to us, you know, if we're going to Mars, that's going to be a multi-year mission. We have to find a way to protect our astronauts for years out in space where they're exposed to all kinds of things that they don't get here on earth. It's just so important for us to get a handle on this one particular challenge as we're also responding to all the other challenges that lie ahead as we try to go toward Mars. Yeah, and it seems like IMAP is such a complex mission. Can you break it down a little bit more for us, for those of us who, you know, are just new to all of this? Oh sure, sure. So outside the solar system, we have something that's called the interstellar medium. So there are, there's dust particles, there's energetic particles out there that interact with interstellar space. And then inside our solar system, we have slightly different conditions. But understanding the boundary between our solar system and that interstellar medium is incredibly important. And also understanding how that, how that boundary is formed by the sun and how the boundary conditions change as a result of solar activity. As we explore the solar system, it's just so important for us to understand exactly what are the dynamics of the solar system. We have to kind of know before we go, right? You're going to check the map and check the weather report before you go anywhere. That's part of what we're doing. Oh, I love how you broke that down now. You talked about things that might be flying at the spacecraft with the mission going on. So what happens if it gets hit by like a solar storm or something of that nature? What happens? Well, we've designed these satellites. We've actually designed the circuitry and the components to be able to withstand solar storms. We really want to be able to fly through whatever we experience so that we can get the data from what happens during the storms. So our engineers have worked extremely hard to make these satellites resilient so they can keep flying and keep gathering data even during the most severe storms. Well, I really appreciate you speaking to us today and kind of cluing us into some things that really seem, well, from outer space. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Well, thank you. It's been great to be here. All right.

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Los Angeles

Jimmy Kimmel returning to air

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New York

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Rome

Middle East Conflict

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Moscow

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Lisbon

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Nashua

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Phoenix

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Tel Aviv-Yafo

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London

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Kyiv

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Heathrow Airport

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Breakdown