NASA launched four devices to study the re-closure of magnetic lines

Cape Canaveral, FL, NASA

NASA launched on Thursday four identical spacecraft to study the interaction of the magnetic fields of the Earth and the Sun. The Atlas unmanned rocket with NASA 's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) onboard took off from Cape Canaveral according to a timetable. Within two hours after launch, all four research observatories continued on their own.

“This is just wonderful,” said launch manager Omar Baez at the end of the work, “Applause from others ... I can't describe it.”

The quartet of observatories is put into an oblong orbit tens of thousands of kilometers in the magnetosphere - almost halfway to the moon. All of them will be, practically, in one point, at a distance of 10 to 400 km from each other, forming a kind of "pyramid". A similar shape was chosen to provide a 3-D type of reconnection of magnetic lines on a small scale. We see this phenomenon in the form of geomagnetic storms, solar flares, and even the northern lights. The data obtained by scientists can help to understand the so-called "space weather".
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Each observatory looks like a huge octagonal wheel, 3.35 meters across, 1.21 meters high and weighing about 1 360 kilograms. The observatories were numbered and folded like tires on top of a rocket. After going into space, Observatory No. 4 was the first to go, and then with an interval of five minutes and the rest, one after the other.


Observatory №1 at the assembly stage, photo by NASA .

“All observatories are normal and working. There are no barriers to continue our mission, ”said Craig Tule, project manager at NASA.

The head of research, Jim Burch, from the Southwestern San Antonio Research Institute, said observatories would allow for electron-scale research. This is an order of magnitude better results than those obtained earlier in the course of research of previous heliophysical missions. Scientists will have more than one hundred different sensors at their disposal. The initial collection of information will begin this summer, which will be preceded by a five-month testing period for all systems.