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 On February 5th. 2002. NASA's High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager. 

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 or HESSI spacecraft. was launched aboard a Pegasus XL rocket. 

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 It was dropped at 3:58 pm Eastern from the belly of an L1011 aircraft that took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

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 HESSI was designed to obtain pictures of solar flares using X-rays and gamma rays. 

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 and explore the basic physics of particle acceleration and energy release in those solar flares. 

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 Nearly two months after the successful launch. the satellite was rechristened 

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 RHESSI - the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager. 

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 The new name was to honor the late NASA scientist who pioneered the fields of solar-flare physics. gamma-ray astronomy and cosmic ray research. 

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 Among the many discoveries by RHESSI - scientists using the spacecraft measured the roundness of the sun and found it is not a perfect sphere. 

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 Originally planned as just a two-year mission. the RHESSI spacecraft continues to document countless solar flares. 

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