A brand new mission set to blast off for low-Earth orbit will examine magnetic storms across the Earth and be taught extra about how they have an effect on our ambiance and satellites.
NASA’s Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS for brief, mission represents a pair of satellites that can fly in a sun-synchronous orbit — that means they’re at all times over the dayside of the Earth — and move by the polar cusps. The cusps are, in essence, two holes in Earth’s magnetosphere, the place the sphere traces dip down onto the magnetic poles.
When an inflow of photo voltaic wind particles slam into Earth’s magnetosphere, they’ll overload the magnetic-field traces, inflicting them to snap, disconnect after which reconnect. Magnetic reconnection, as the method known as, can launch vitality that accelerates charged particles down the funnel-shaped cusps and into our ambiance, the place they collide with molecules and, if a photo voltaic storm is intense sufficient, generate auroral lights.
When TRACERS launches — anticipated to be no sooner than late July — it would search to be taught extra in regards to the magnetic-reconnection course of and the way area climate impacts our planet.
“What we’ll be taught from TRACERS is vital for understanding, and ultimately predicting, how vitality from our solar impacts not solely the Earth, but additionally our space- and ground-based property, whether or not it’s GPS or communications indicators, energy grids, area property or our astronauts working in area,” mentioned Joe Westlake, Director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, in a NASA teleconference.
Traditionally, the issue in learning magnetic reconnection has been that when a satellite tv for pc flies by the area of reconnection and captures information, all it sees is a snapshot. Then, 90 minutes or so afterward its subsequent orbit, it takes one other snapshot. In that elapsed time, the area could have modified, however it’s unattainable to inform from these snapshots why it is totally different. It might be as a result of the system itself is altering, or the magnetic-reconnection coupling course of between the photo voltaic wind and Earth’s magnetosphere is transferring about — or possibly it’s switching on and off.
“These are elementary issues that we have to perceive,” mentioned TRACERS’ principal investigator, David Miles of the College of Iowa, in the identical teleconference.
That is why TRACERS is vital, as a result of it’s two satellites working in tandem reasonably than being a lone magnetic explorer.
“They’ll observe one another at a really shut separation,” mentioned Miles. “So, one spacecraft goes by, and inside two minutes the second spacecraft comes by, and that offers us two intently spaced measurements.”
Collectively, the dual spacecraft will measure the magnetic- and electric-field strengths the place magnetic reconnection is going down, in addition to what the native ions and electrons trapped within the magnetosphere are doing.
“What TRACERS goes to review is how the output of the solar {couples} to near-Earth area,” mentioned Miles. “What we’re seeking to perceive is how the coupling between these techniques modifications in area and in time.”
TRACERS won’t be alone on the market, and can have the ability to work with different missions already in operation, corresponding to NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMM), that research reconnection from farther afield than TRACERS’ low-Earth orbit 590 kilometers above our heads. There’s additionally NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission, and the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE), which each examine solar-wind interactions with our planet from low-Earth orbit.
“TRACERS joins the fleet of present heliophysics missions which might be actively rising our understanding of the solar, area climate, and the best way to mitigate its impacts,” mentioned Westlake.
The $170 million TRACERS is ready to launch no sooner than the tip of July on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that shall be carrying a number of different small missions into orbit on the identical time. The solutions that TRACERS may present about how magnetic reconnection works will permit scientists to higher defend vital infrastructure for when photo voltaic storms hit.
“It will assist us preserve our lifestyle protected right here on Earth,” mentioned Westlake.
