National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Marshall Space Flight Center

Hi-C

Hi-C

About the Program

The High resolution Coronal Imager was an instrument selected through NASA's ROSES program in 2010 and designed to follow Low Cost Access to Space (LCAS) guidelines. These guidelines include 1. innovative design, 2. exploitation of latest technology, 3. flight-test maturation of new technologies, 4. cost-effectiveness. The LCAS development environment complements the strict, requirements-driven, high-cost mission approach by fostering innovation and prudent risk-taking. It also allows flexibility to exploit and develop low cost Commercial Orbital Transportation (COTS) technology while providing flight-operations experience and design refinement over successive missions. Overall, LCAS investigations can quickly and inexpensively test technology directly supporting strategic missions from conception through science analysis.

Several organizations were key to the Hi-C sounding rocket program success. MSFC/NASA led the mission with substantial contributions from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.; Lockheed Martin's Solar Astrophysical Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.; the University of Central Lancashire in Lancashire, England; and the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.