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By European Space Agency
Image: The varied landscape of England’s Lake District is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article
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By NASA
The TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission will help scientists understand an explosive process called magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: University of Iowa/Andy Kale NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 17, to share information about the agency’s upcoming Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than late July.
The TRACERS mission is a pair of twin satellites that will study how Earth’s magnetic shield — the magnetosphere — protects our planet from the supersonic stream of material from the Sun called solar wind. As they fly pole to pole in a Sun-synchronous orbit, the two TRACERS spacecraft will measure how magnetic explosions send these solar wind particles zooming down into Earth’s atmosphere — and how these explosions shape the space weather that impacts our satellites, technology, and astronauts.
Also launching on this flight will be three additional NASA-funded payloads. The Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost) SmallSat, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is designed to demonstrate an innovative, configurable way to put remote-sensing instruments into orbit faster and more affordably. The Polylingual Experimental Terminal technology demonstration, managed by the agency’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program, will showcase new technology that empowers missions to roam between communications networks in space, like cell phones roam between providers on Earth. Finally, the Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss (REAL) CubeSat, led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, will use space as a laboratory to understand how high-energy particles within the bands of radiation that surround Earth are naturally scattered into the atmosphere, aiding the development of methods for removing these damaging particles to better protect satellites and the critical ground systems they support.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:
nasa.gov/live
Participants include:
Joe Westlake, division director, Heliophysics, NASA Headquarters Kory Priestley, principal investigator, Athena EPIC, NASA Langley Greg Heckler, deputy program manager for capability development, SCaN, NASA Headquarters David Miles, principal investigator for TRACERS, University of Iowa Robyn Millan, REAL principal investigator, Dartmouth College To participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 10 a.m. on July 17 to Sarah Frazier at: sarah.frazier@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
The TRACERS mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This mission is led by David Miles at the University of Iowa with support from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program Office at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the mission for the agency’s HeliophysicsDivision at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The University of Iowa, Southwest Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California, Berkeley, all lead instruments on TRACERS that will study changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and electric field. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare contract.
To learn more about TRACERS, please visit:
nasa.gov/tracers
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Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Earth Heliophysics Science Mission Directorate Solar Wind TRACERS View the full article
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