Research platform launched to brave Van Allen radiation belts

Japan launched a research satellite Tuesday to repeatedly fly through the Van Allen belts high above Earth, helping scientists sort out how chaotic geomagnetic storms form and evolve and potentially endanger astronauts, spacecraft and infrastructure vital to life on the ground. The compact, cube-shaped spacecraft took off on top of an Epsilon booster at 1100 GMT (6 a.m. EST; 8 p.m. Japan Standard Time) Tuesday, launching toward the east from a hillside rocket complex the Uchinoura Space Center on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The 85-foot-tall (26-meter) launcher climbed into the night sky atop a half-million pounds of thrust from its first stage, a solid-fueled rocket motor derived from the strap-on booster from Japan’s heavier-duty H-2A rocket. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 21)