Seoul: The Republic of Korea’s national space agency announced plans to send a solar coronagraph, jointly developed with the United States, to the International Space Station (ISS) to study the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, and solar wind.

According to Emirates News Agency, the Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) is a collaboration between the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is set to be delivered to the ISS onboard Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As part of a bilateral solar research project, the coronagraph will be docked with the express logistics carrier on the ISS, observing the corona for up to 55 minutes during each 90-minute Earth orbit.

KASA noted that CODEX is the world’s first coronagraph designed to observe the temperature and velocity of the solar wind in addition to its density. This innovation aims to help researchers better understand solar wind and improve predictions of s
pace weather.

Solar wind, a continuous stream of particles and magnetic fields from the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, plays a significant role in shaping space weather conditions.