NASA launched four identical spacecraft on Thursday on a US$1.1 billion mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun’s magnetic fields.
The unmanned Atlas rocket — and NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — soared into a clear late-night sky, right on time. Within two hours, all four observatories were flying free.
“Just picture-perfect,” launch manager Omar Baez said early yesterday. “Everybody’s cheering... Can’t ask for any more.”
Photo: EPA
The quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of kilometers into the magnetosphere — nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 10km and 402km apart, to provide 3D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales.
Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth.
Data from this two-year mission should help scientists better understand so-called space weather.
Each observatory resembles a giant octagonal wheel, stretching more than 3.35m across and 1.22m high, and weighing 1,360.79kg apiece.
Numbered and stacked like tires on top of the rocket for launch, No. 4 popped free first more than an hour after liftoff, followed every five minutes by another.
“They’re all healthy and turned on. Essentially, we’re all green and headed into our mission,” NASA project manager Craig Tooley said.
Principal investigator Jim Burch from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said measurements would be made down to the electron scale, significantly smaller than previous heliophysics missions.
In all, there are 100 science sensors. Primary science-gathering is scheduled to begin this summer, following a five-month checkout.
“We’re not setting out here to solve space weather,” Burch said. “We’re setting out to learn the fundamental features of magnetic reconnection, because that’s what drives space weather.”
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