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SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission - Earth's magnetic field study

UNH gets $38m NASA grant

The MMS spacecraft are slated to launch aboard an 86-foot, 225,000-pound Delta II rocket in July 2013.

As part of an international team from 12 institutions, space scientists at UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) will construct instruments for MMS' four identical probes, destined to study little-understood, fundamental processes in the Earth's magnetosphere — the magnetic shield that protects Earth from solar and cosmic radiation.

Over the next eight years, UNH scientists, engineers, graduate and undergraduate students will help construct two electron drift instruments (EDIs) for each of the four spacecraft.

In addition, UNH will construct the central electronic controls for all the instruments being built to measure the spectrum of electromagnetic fields around the spacecraft. This FIELDS instrument suite will be comprised of six sensors per spacecraft.

The mission is designed to explore the plasma processes that govern the interaction of Earth's magnetic field with the highly charged solar wind. The magnetosphere is a multi-layered, comet-shaped magnetic shield that, in its tail, extends as far as 60,000 kilometers away.

One of those processes is magnetic reconnection, in which magnetic fields reconfigure themselves and release energy. Reconnection, a main focus of the MMS mission, is the basic mechanism by which energy from the sun and the solar wind is transferred into the Earth's magnetospheric system.

Reconnection is widely believed to play a crucial role in space and astrophysical phenomena such as magnetospheric substorms and solar flares. It is a crucial process to understand in order to be able to predict space weather conditions.

For example, a blast of this energy from substorms or solar flares can affect satellites, Earth-based instruments and power grids, shower astronauts and aircraft flying over the Earth's poles with deadly radiation, and light up the sky with aurora.

This also has implications for starting a magnetosphere as well for mars if the knowledge is gained for how one is sustained.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission - Earth's magnetic field study

Another source on the same:
UNH wins $38m NASA grant for building space instruments

Yang Liwei Rocket

Member

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 993

Re: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission - Earth's magnetic field study

somewhat related study

the ESA Europeans and Chinese have been working together on a mission

Double Star is operating alongside ESA’s Cluster mission and is studying closely the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field. Together with Cluster

http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/index.as … /index.asp
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM45Z5TI8E_in … dex_0.html
http://www.cast.cn/en/ShowArticle.asp?A … icleID=530
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=37120

The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. The magnetometer data are used to derive the attitude of the spacecraft. The satellite manufacturer, CAST, has made a model of the evolution of the attitude of the two spacecraft.

it would be great for UNH scientists to do more work and for the MMS craft to bne sent on the Delta rocket

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'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission - Earth's magnetic field study

Just fixed the few posts that had issues with the websites conversions....

I think this article relates to this topic....
New research findings will help mitigate effects of extreme space weather
'Space tsunami' causes the third Van Allen Belt

Like a protective shield, the magnetosphere absorbs and deflects plasma from the solar wind which originates from the Sun. When conditions are right, beautiful dancing auroral displays are generated. Researchers at the University of Alberta shows for the first time how the puzzling third Van Allen radiation belt is created by a "space tsunami." Intense so-called ultra-low frequency (ULF) plasma waves, which are excited on the scale of the whole magnetosphere, transport the outer part of the belt radiation harmlessly into interplanetary space and create the previously unexplained feature of the third belt.