NASA selects SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch SunRISE space-weather mission

NASA’s SunRISE space-weather mission, a six-satellite heliophysics array that will form a giant radio telescope in Earth orbit to study solar radio bursts, will now launch on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy instead of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur. The rideshare, sponsored by the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command, follows a booster anomaly on Vulcan that prompted a pause of certain launches. SunRISE is designed to improve space-weather prediction models (not as an alert system) and is led by University of Michigan scientists with NASA’s JPL managing; a Falcon Heavy launch is also slated for NASA’s Nancy Roman Space Telescope later this year.