Woods Thomas N, Harder Jerald W, Kopp Greg, McCabe Debra, Rottman Gary, Ryan Sean, Snow Martin
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, 3665 Discovery Dr., Boulder, CO 80303 USA.
South African National Space Agency, Hospital Street, Hermanus, 7200 South Africa.
Sol Phys. 2021;296(8):127. doi: 10.1007/s11207-021-01869-3. Epub 2021 Aug 23.
The (SORCE) was a NASA mission that operated from 2003 to 2020 to provide key climate-monitoring measurements of total solar irradiance (TSI) and solar spectral irradiance (SSI). Three important accomplishments of the SORCE mission are i) the continuation of the 42-year-long TSI climate data record, ii) the continuation of the ultraviolet SSI record, and iii) the initiation of the near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared SSI records. All of the SORCE instruments functioned well over the 17-year mission, which far exceeded its five-year prime mission goal. The SORCE spacecraft, having mostly redundant subsystems, was also robust over the mission. The end of the SORCE mission was a planned passivation of the spacecraft following a successful two-year overlap with the NASA (TSIS) mission, which continues the TSI and SSI climate records. There were a couple of instrument anomalies and a few spacecraft anomalies during SORCE's long mission, but operational changes and updates to flight software enabled SORCE to remain productive to the end of its mission. The most challenging of the anomalies was the degradation of the battery capacity that began to impact operations in 2009 and was the cause for the largest SORCE data gap (August 2013 - February 2014). An overview of the SORCE mission is provided with a couple of science highlights and a discussion of flight anomalies that impacted the solar observations. Companion articles about the SORCE instruments and their final science data-processing algorithms provide additional details about the instrument measurements over the duration of the mission.
太阳辐射和气候实验（SORCE）是美国国家航空航天局（NASA）在2003年至2020年执行的一项任务，旨在提供太阳总辐照度（TSI）和太阳光谱辐照度（SSI）的关键气候监测测量数据。SORCE任务的三项重要成果是：i）延续了长达42年的TSI气候数据记录；ii）延续了紫外线SSI记录；iii）开启了近紫外线、可见光和近红外SSI记录。在为期17年的任务中，SORCE的所有仪器都运行良好，远超其五年的主要任务目标。SORCE航天器的大多数子系统都有冗余，在整个任务期间也很可靠。SORCE任务结束时，在与NASA的总太阳辐照度监测仪（TSIS）任务成功重叠两年后，按计划对航天器进行了钝化处理，TSIS任务继续记录TSI和SSI气候数据。在SORCE的长期任务中出现了一些仪器异常和一些航天器异常情况，但通过操作变更和飞行软件更新，SORCE在任务结束前一直保持着高效运行。其中最具挑战性的异常是电池容量下降，这一情况在2009年开始影响任务操作，也是SORCE数据出现最大缺口（2013年8月至2014年2月）的原因。本文概述了SORCE任务，介绍了一些科学亮点，并讨论了影响太阳观测的飞行异常情况。关于SORCE仪器及其最终科学数据处理算法的配套文章提供了任务期间仪器测量的更多详细信息。
