- Home
- Agencies
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Housing and Urban Development
- General Services Administration
- Department of Commerce
- Department of the Interior
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Department of Defense
- Department of Justice
- National Science Foundation
- Department of Education
- Department of Labor
- Office of Personnel Management
- Department of Energy
- Department of State
- Small Business Administration
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Department of Transportation
- Social Security Administration
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Department of the Treasury
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of Homeland Security
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Goals
- Initiatives
- Programs
Primary tabs
Strategic Objective
Understand the Sun.
Strategic Objective
Overview
The domain of heliophysics ranges from the interior of the Sun, to the upper atmosphere and near-space environment of Earth (above 50 kilometers), and outward to a region far beyond Pluto where the Sun’s influence wanes against the forces of interstellar space. Earth and the other planets of our solar system reside in this vast extended atmosphere of the Sun, called the heliosphere, which is made of electrified and magnetized matter entwined with penetrating radiation and energetic particles. To increase our understanding of the heliopshere, we seek to answer fundamental questions about this system’s behavior: What causes the Sun to vary? How do geospace, planetary space environments, and the heliosphere respond? What are the impacts to humanity?
The emerging science of interplanetary space weather is crucial to NASA’s human and robotic exploration objectives beyond Earth’s orbit. Humans are presently confined to low Earth orbit, where the planetary magnetic field and the body of Earth itself provide substantial protection against solar storms. Eventually, though, astronauts will travel to distant places where natural shielding is considerably less. Our new long-term exploration initiatives directly rely on our ability to successfully understand, predict, and mitigate impacts of interplanetary space weather.
Read Less...Progress Update
NASA, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, has determined that performance toward this strategic objective is making noteworthy progress.
Through the Strategic Review and the Agency’s other performance management processes, NASA reviews recent accomplishments and near term plans for the Agency’s strategic objectives and programs. NASA’s Strategic Objective 1.4 is pursued by the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Heliophysics Division, which seeks to understand the Sun, the vast extended atmosphere of the Sun (called the heliosphere), and planetary environments as a single connected system. The Heliophysics Division is poised to make significant progress on key Heliophysics science questions, and since the 2014 NASA Strategic Review, Heliophysics has demonstrated an improvement in the planned cadence of future missions. In addition, the Heliophysics flight program is demonstrating excellent cost and schedule performance following the recent launch of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, and particularly noteworthy scientific discoveries were announced in the last year. Our critical next steps include continuing the development of the next Heliophysics missions, including the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD), Solar Probe Plus (SPP), and the Solar Orbiter Collaboration (SOC). NASA is also an agency member of the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation Task Force that developed and is implementing the National Space Weather Strategy and National Space Weather Action Plan. This effort will enhance the Nation’s space-weather readiness in national preparedness, forecasting, and understanding. Specific performance measures for the next two years can be found in NASA’s FY 2016 and FY 2017 Annual Performance Plans.
The Strategic Review also addresses long-term strategic outcomes, alignment, and key management challenges for each strategic objective, as well as across NASA’s portfolio of activities. In 10 years, NASA plans that the Agency’s current efforts under Strategic Objective 1.4 will lead to further understanding of what causes the Sun to vary, how the geospace, planetary space environments, and the heliosphere respond to those variations, and impacts on humanity. Future success for this strategic objective requires maintaining and expanding the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO), the fleet of spacecraft that operate concurrently, providing continuous observations and connected measurements. Maintaining an adequate mission cadence and balance is therefore critical. In addition, many of the key challenges for the Heliophysics Division are common across all of the SMD divisions (access to space; technology development; project technical, cost, and schedule challenges; partnerships; and mission support services and infrastructure) and are articulated in the 2014 Science Plan.
For more information, please see http://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/. Highlighted achievements during FY 2015 are detailed in the FY 2015 Agency Financial Report. Additional details on the FY 2015 performance for supporting Performance Goals and Annual Performance Indicators are provided in NASA’s FY 2015 Annual Performance Report. Information on the strategies for achieving this strategic objective can be found in the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan. Additional information on strategies, challenges, implementation, and program-specific detail is available in the NASA 2014 Science Plan.
