Vantage built and delivered the first set of thermal Multilayer Insulation (MLI) blankets for Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to be installed on the Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) instrument. SWiPS is going to be installed on the Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission, which is a deep-space mission operating in a Lissajous orbit at the Sun-Earth Lagrange 1 (L1) point, enabling upstream measurements of solar wind disturbances before they reach Earth.
It will provide continuous measurements of the sun’s corona and of the solar wind at the L1 point and transmit continuous real-time data to Earth. The SWFO-L1 SWiPS is two identical top-hat electrostatic analyzers that measure the velocity, density, and temperature of solar wind ions.
SWiPS provides real-time, around-the-clock observations of the plasma structures directed toward Earth. SWiPS monitors the solar wind for abrupt changes, which can result from interplanetary shocks, coronal mass ejections, corotating interaction regions or high-speed solar wind, because these can cause geomagnetic storms that are harmful to life and technology. Vantage is proud of our thermal engineering team that has continued to provide outstanding support to SwRI’s cutting-edge instrument development efforts.
Vantage Designs and Fabricates MLI for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe