NASA Launches Mission to Examine Earth’s Magnetic Defend | Physics and Astronomy – College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

NASA’s latest mission, TRACERS, quickly will start learning how Earth’s magnetic defend protects our planet from the results of house climate. Short for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, the dual TRACERS spacecraft lifted off at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) Wednesday July 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

“NASA is proud to launch TRACERS to demonstrate and expand American preeminence in space science research and technology,” mentioned appearing NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “The TRACERS satellites will move us forward in decoding space weather and further our understanding of the connection between Earth and the Sun. This mission will yield breakthroughs that will advance our pursuit of the Moon, and subsequently, Mars.”

The twin satellites will fly one behind the opposite – following as intently as 10 seconds aside over the identical location – and can take a record-breaking 3,000 measurements in a single yr to construct a step-by-step image of how magnetic reconnection adjustments over time.

Riding together with TRACERS aboard the Falcon 9 had been NASA’s Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost), PExT (Polylingual Experimental Terminal), and REAL (Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss) missions – three small satellites to show new applied sciences and collect scientific knowledge. These three missions had been efficiently deployed, and mission controllers will work to contact them over the approaching hours and days.

Ground controllers for the TRACERS mission established communications with the second of the 2 spacecraft at 3:43 p.m. PDT (6:43 p.m. EDT), about 3 hours after it separated from the rocket. During the subsequent 4 weeks, TRACERS will endure a commissioning interval throughout which mission controllers will take a look at their devices and programs.

Once cleared, the dual satellites will start their 12-month prime mission to check a course of referred to as magnetic reconnection, answering key questions on the way it shapes the impacts of the Sun and house climate on our each day lives.

“NASA’s heliophysics fleet helps to safeguard humanity’s home in space and understand the influence of our closest star, the Sun,” mentioned Joe Westlake, heliophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By adding TRACERS to that fleet, we will gain a better understanding of those impacts right here at Earth.”

The two TRACERS spacecraft will orbit via an open area in Earth’s magnetic discipline close to the North Pole, referred to as the polar cusp. Here, TRACERS will examine explosive magnetic occasions that occur when the Sun’s magnetic discipline – carried via house in a stream of photo voltaic materials referred to as the photo voltaic wind – collides with Earth’s magnetic discipline. This collision creates a buildup of power that causes magnetic reconnection, when magnetic discipline strains snap and explosively realign, flinging away close by particles at excessive speeds.

Flying via the polar cusp permits the TRACERS satellites to check the outcomes of those magnetic explosions, measuring charged particles that race down into Earth’s environment and collide with atmospheric gases – giving scientist the instruments to reconstruct precisely how adjustments within the incoming photo voltaic wind have an effect on how, and the way rapidly, power and particles are coupled into near-Earth house.

“The successful launch of TRACERS is a tribute to many years of work by an excellent team,” mentioned David Miles, TRACERS principal investigator on the University of Iowa. “TRACERS is set to transform our understanding of Earth’s magnetosphere. We’re excited to explore the dynamic processes driving space weather.”

Small Satellites Along for Ride

Athena EPIC is a pathfinder mission that can show NASA’s use of an progressive and configurable industrial SmallSat structure to enhance flexibility of payload designs, cut back launch schedule, and cut back general prices in future missions, in addition to the advantages of working collaboratively with federal companions. In addition to this demonstration for NASA, as soon as the Athena EPIC satellite tv for pc completes its two-week commissioning interval, the mission will spend the subsequent 12 months taking measurements of outgoing longwave radiation from Earth.

The PExT demonstration will take a look at interoperability between industrial and authorities communication networks for the primary time by demonstrating a wideband polylingual terminal in low Earth orbit. This terminal will use software-defined radios to leap between authorities and industrial networks, just like cell telephones roaming between suppliers on Earth. These terminals might enable future missions to modify seamlessly between networks and entry new industrial providers all through its lifecycle in house.

The REAL mission is a CubeSat that can examine how energetic electrons are scattered out of the Van Allen radiation belts and into Earth’s environment. Shaped like concentric rings excessive above Earth’s equator, the Van Allen belts are composed of a mixture of high-energy electrons and protons which might be trapped in place by Earth’s magnetic discipline. Studying electrons and their interactions, REAL goals to enhance our understanding of those energetic particles that may injury spacecraft and imperil astronauts who cross via them. 

The TRACERS mission is led by David Miles on the University of Iowa with help from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program Office on the company’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the mission for the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The University of Iowa, Southwest Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley, all lead devices on TRACERS.

The Athena EPIC mission is led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and is a partnership between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Space Force, and NovaWurks. Athena EPIC’s launch is supported by launch integrator SEOPS. The PExT demonstration is managed by NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program in partnership with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, with launch help by York Space Systems. The REAL challenge is led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and is a partnership between Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Montana State University, and Boston University. Sponsored by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and CubeSat Launch Initiative, it was included via launch integrator Maverick Space Systems.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based mostly on the company’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract.

To be taught extra about TRACERS, go to:

https://nasa.gov/tracers

SpaceX launch video: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=tracers