Atlas rocket launches mission 50 years in the making

A mission to answer questions as old as the space age launched from Cape Canaveral this morning as two armored satellites were sent into hellish orbits that submerge the craft in Earth's punishing radiation belts. "We have been waiting for this mission for decades. The Van Allen Belts were discovered in 1958 and since that time we know some things about the radiation belts but not enough. This mission is designed to really understand the whole solar interaction with the radiation belts and understand why they are excited (by the sun) and why sometimes they are not," said Richard Fitzgerald, the RBSP project manager. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 31)