ULA rocket carrying satellite to study the sun successfully launches from Cape Canaveral

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched an Atlas V rocket carrying a satellite into space that will study the sun.  The rocket launched at 11:03 p.m. when the expected launch window opened. 

This was the first launch for ULA in 2020 and the company's overall 137th launch, the ULA program manager of NASA missions confirmed.

In space, the satellite will sling past Earth, then loop around Venus, giving it enough trajectory to move into a tilted orbit around the sun. Scientists say this will give us important new information about our closest star, particularly about its magnetic fields, which can impact astronauts, satellites and everyday technology like radio and GPS.

“So some of the science we want to study is the magnetic field. For instance, we don’t know what the magnetic field of a star looks like, but we know a lot of the stuff that goes on with a star like the sun is very intimately related to the magnetic fields,” said Ian Walters, with AirBus UK.

The next launch for the United Launch Alliance is March 13th.