A GWYNEDD man who studied at Aberystwyth University is working on a project selected by NASA to help improve our understanding of the dynamics of the Sun, the Sun-Earth connection, and the constantly changing space environment.

Dr Owen Wyn Roberts, 34, is part of a team working on the HelioSwarm concept, one of two concepts selected by NASA to be built. The other is the Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE).

“MUSE and HelioSwarm will provide new and deeper insight into the solar atmosphere and space weather,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington.

“These missions not only extend the science of our other heliophysics missions—they also provide a unique perspective and a novel approach to understanding the mysteries of our star.”

HelioSwarm is a constellation or “swarm” of nine spacecraft that will capture the first multiscale in-space measurements of fluctuations in the magnetic field and motions of the solar wind known as solar wind turbulence.

The Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, the heliosphere, encompasses an enormous region of the solar system.

Solar winds spread through the heliosphere, and their interactions with planetary magnetospheres and disruptions such as coronal mass ejections affect their turbulence.

Studying solar wind turbulence across large areas requires plasma measurements taken simultaneously from different points in space.

HelioSwarm consists of one hub spacecraft and eight co-orbiting small satellites that range in distance from each other and the hub spacecraft. The hub spacecraft will maintain radio contact with each small satellite.

All radio contact between the swarm and Earth will be conducted through the hub spacecraft and the NASA Deep Space Network of spacecraft communication antennas.

“The technical innovation of HelioSwarm’s small satellites operating together as a constellation provides the unique ability to investigate turbulence and its evolution in the solar wind,” said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division.

The mission’s budget is $250 million.

Dr Roberts, who was born and raised in Bangor and studied at Aberystwyth University, is now based in Graz, Austria, where he works at the Space Research Institute (IWF).

Speaking to the Cambrian News about HelioSwarm, he said: “We will now work on building the instruments, the spacecraft and developing the analysis tools and methods for the data the mission will provide.

“With nine spacecraft it is a lot of data. There have been missions with four spacecraft such as Cluster and the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission and the methods used for these missions will now need to be updated and expanded for nine spacecraft.

“It is a really exciting time for space plasma physics, as the community has been wanting a mission like this for years. The first ideas started to be discussed as early as the 1980s, but we needed the technology to mature a little and to gain the experience from four spacecraft missions.”

The Cambrian News cannot wait to hear more about the mission.