• NASA launched the TRACERS mission (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) on July 23. 

• The twin TRACERS spacecraft lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

What is the purpose of this mission?

• The Earth’s magnetosphere protects the planet from the constant bombardment of solar particles from the Sun, called the solar wind. Magnetic reconnection occurs when the solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, causing magnetic field lines to disconnect and reconnect. 

• This causes particles to rain down into Earth’s atmosphere. The effects of space weather can lead to beautiful phenomena, like the aurora, but can also impact space-based infrastructure, like satellites and GPS systems.

• The mission will study how Earth’s magnetic shield protects the planet from the effects of space weather. 

• During the next four weeks, TRACERS will undergo a commissioning period during which mission controllers will check out their instruments and systems.

• Once cleared, the twin satellites will begin their 12-month prime mission to study a process called magnetic reconnection, answering key questions about how it shapes the impacts of the Sun and space weather on our daily lives.

• The twin satellites will fly one behind the other — following as closely as 10 seconds apart over the same location — and will take a record-breaking 3,000 measurements in one year to build a step-by-step picture of how magnetic reconnection changes over time.

• The two TRACERS spacecraft will orbit through an open region in Earth’s magnetic field near the North Pole, called the polar cusp. 

• Here, TRACERS will investigate explosive magnetic events that happen when the Sun’s magnetic field — carried through space in a stream of solar material called the solar wind — collides with Earth’s magnetic field. 

• Flying through the polar cusp allows the TRACERS satellites to study the results of these magnetic explosions, measuring charged particles that race down into Earth’s atmosphere and collide with atmospheric gases — giving scientists the tools to reconstruct exactly how changes in the incoming solar wind affect how, and how quickly, energy and particles are coupled into near-Earth space.

Three additional payloads launched with TRACERS

i) The Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost) SmallSat, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is designed to demonstrate an innovative, configurable way to put remote-sensing instruments into orbit faster and more affordably.

ii) The PExT (Polylingual Experimental Terminal) technology demonstration, managed by NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program in partnership with the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, will showcase new technology that empowers missions to roam between communications networks in space, like cell phones roam between providers on Earth.

iii) The REAL CubeSat, led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, will use space as a laboratory to understand how high-energy particles within the bands of radiation that surround Earth are naturally scattered into the atmosphere, aiding the development of methods for removing these damaging particles to better protect satellites and the critical ground systems they support. 

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