NRL Imager Begins Solar Wind Observations Aboard NASA PUNCH Mission (March 24, 2025)

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's (NRL) Narrow Field Imager (NFI) commenced operations in orbit on March 24, 2025, after launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission on March 11. The NFI payload deployed on March 12 and is gathering data from low Earth orbit. PUNCH, a quartet of satellites, aims to deliver three-dimensional imagery of the inner heliosphere, studying the solar corona's transformation into the solar wind. The NFI, a compact coronagraph with an external occulter, observes the faint corona and background starfield around the Sun. It features a compound lens system, a polarizing filter wheel, and a CCD camera with a 2K x 2K active detector. The NFI will track the Sun's atmosphere's evolution into the space environment, providing insights into space weather's impact, including coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and corotating interaction regions (CIRs). PUNCH will capture the development of CMEs, offering data on their origins and movement, crucial for predicting the Earth-bound consequences of solar activity, such as satellite degradation, communication blackouts, and power disruptions.