Twin satellites rocketed into orbit Thursday on a quest to explore Earth's treacherous radiation belts and protect the planet from solar outbursts, AP reported. NASA launched the science probes before dawn, sending them skyward aboard an unmanned rocket. It's the first time two spacecraft will orbit in tandem amid the punishing radiation belts of Earth, brimming with highly charged particles capable of wrecking satellites. These new satellites - shielded with thick aluminum - are designed to withstand an onslaught of cosmic rays for the next two years. "We're going to a place that other missions try to avoid and we need to live there for two years. That's one of our biggest challenges," said Richard Fitzgerald, project manager for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The lab built the Radiation Belt Storm Probes for NASA, and is operating them from Maryland following launch delays of a week. Scientists expect the $686 million (Euro 547-million) mission to shed light on how the sun affects the Van Allen radiation belts, named after the astrophysicist who discovered them a half-century ago. Earth's two doughnut-shaped radiation belts stretch thousands of miles into space; these inner and outer belts are full of high-energy particles from the sun and elsewhere in the cosmos, trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Normally, the belts remain well above the International Space Station and low-flying satellites. But the belts can expand during solar storms right into the paths of orbiting spacecraft. If severe enough, the storms can cripple satellites and endanger astronauts, and disrupt power and communications on the ground. The goal of this mission is to improve space weather forecasting.
