Nasa's new mission to study space weather from ISS indiatoday.in

Nasa has selected a new mission that will help scientists understand and, ultimately, forecast the vast space weather system around our planet. The Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission will cost $42 million and is planned to launch in August 2022, attached to the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency said in a statement on Tuesday. From its space station perch, AWE will focus on colourful bands of light in Earth's atmosphere, called airglow, to determine what combination of forces drive space weather in the upper atmosphere. "This mission absolutely meets that standard with a creative and cost-effective mission to solve mysteries about Earth's upper atmosphere," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Director of Astrophysics. Space weather is important because it can have profound impacts – affecting technology and astronauts in space, disrupting radio communications and, at its most severe, overwhelming power grids.