Overview

• The TRACERS mission lifted off on July 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, deploying two tandem satellites into low Earth orbit.
• Controllers will spend the next four weeks commissioning instruments on both spacecraft before commencing a 12-month primary science phase to record 3,000 measurements in Earth’s polar cusps.
• Built by Boeing, the twin probes will fly 10 seconds to two minutes apart as they map how solar wind magnetic fields reconnect with and transfer energy into the magnetosphere.
• Three secondary CubeSats—Athena EPIC, PExT and REAL—deployed alongside TRACERS to validate cost-effective payload architectures, multi-protocol communications and Van Allen belt electron studies.
• Data collected will inform enhanced space weather forecasts to protect critical infrastructure, communication systems, navigation services and astronauts.