Institutes• Royal Observatory of Belgium (Brussels, BE)

Principal Investigator, overall design, onboard software specification, science operations

• PMOD/WRC (Davos, CH)Lead Co-Investigator, overall design and manufacture

• Centre Spatial de Liège (BE)Lead institute, project management, filters

• IMOMEC (Hasselt, BE)Diamond detectors

• Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (Lindau DE)Calibration

• science Co-Is: BISA (Brussels, BE), LPC2E (Orléans, FR)…

• Measurement: Solar irradiance in four UV to XUV channels:“Herzberg”, “Lyman-alpha”, “Aluminum”, “Zirconium”

• Science: Solar flares, space weather services, aeronomy (atmospheric occultations & input to climate models)

• Technological First: diamond UV detectors for astrophysics• And also: high cadence (> 20Hz), 3 redundant units, 24 LEDs, synchrotron calibration

LYRAthe Large Yield RAdiometer 1/3

Introduction

Exploded view of one of the 3 identical LYRA units

A diamond detector Calibrating LYRA at the Berlin synchrotron

LYRA integrated on PROBA2

PRODEX

• 2 Nov. 2009: PROBA2 launch• 16 Nov. 2009: 1st LYRA “Switch On”• Dec. 2009: dark and LED data• 5 & 6 Jan. 2010: unlock all 3 covers• 6 Jan. 2010: First Light for all 3 units

All 12 channels work.• 11 Jan. 2010: LYRA 1st flare• 15 Jan. 2010: lunar eclipse

LYRAthe Large Yield Radiometer 2/3

First Light & lunar eclipse

14 Jan 201018 Jan 2010

LYRA with Unit 2 openedThe ‘South Atlantic Anomaly’ perturbing only LYRA silicon detectors, not diamond

4 days of LYRA data in its EUV channels

Blow-up on the data (all 4 channels) during the lunar eclipse of 15 Jan. 2010.The Sun is less homogeneous in XUV than in UV!

Lunar eclipse of Jan. 15th

solar flares

Regular terrestrial occultations (eclipse season in Jan. 2010)

LYRAthe Large Yield Radiometer 3/3

First results

M1.8 flare of 20/01/2010 10:48 by LYRA and GOES

Onset of the flare Peak of the flare

EUV fluxes (LYRA) grow faster than X-Rays (GOES)

EUV fluxes (LYRA) peak after X-Rays (GOES)

~160 km

~120 km

~120 km

~410 km

~220 km

~360 km

Earth

Successive sunsets and sunrises for all four channels (17 Jan. 2010)

Scientists will make useful and exciting science with LYRA data