by SpaceX launched twin satellites for NASA on Wednesday, in which it is examined how the electrically charged sun wind interacts with the magnetic field of the earth and is constantly changing and changing and constantly changing occasionally dangerous “Space weather” that affect satellites, electrical networks and other critical systems.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets blows from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with seven satellites, including the Twin Tracers NASA, / Credit: SpaceX
The identical tracer satellites will operate in the magnetosphere “the region around our earth, which is dominated by the magnetic field of the planet, and it protects us from star radiation and really, above all, what is going on in space,” said Joseph Westlake, director of solarphysics department for solar physics.
“What we will learn from tracers is crucial for understanding and ultimately the prediction of how energy from our sun influences the earth as well as our space and our floor -based assets, whether it is GPS or communication signals, power grids, space goods and our astronauts that work in space.
“It will help us to make our way of life here on earth.”
A journey to space together with tracers on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was five other small satellites, including one that uses a new “polylingual” terminal to communicate with several other satellites and space probes with various protocols.
Another will collect data about how much solar energy the earth absorbs into space and re-absorbes into space, and another who focuses on how high-quality “killer electrons” are from the van All-radiation belts to rain into the atmosphere.
There were two other small satellites on board, including an experimental “Cubesat” that tested high-speed 5G communication technology in space and was built by an Australian company that bears five small satellites to test technical technological air traffic management technology on the spatial basis that could offer aircraft tracking and communication anywhere in the world.
The mission began at 2:13 p.m. EDT when a rocket from SpaceX Falcon 9 was on the California coast on the Vandenberg Space Force Base. The start one day too late because of a regional power failure on Tuesday, which interrupted air traffic communication via the Pacific near Vandenberg.
The second time, the countdown ticked smoothly to zero and after he had increased the upper stage and pulled the payloads out of the lower atmosphere, the first level peeled away, turned the course and flew back to a landing near the start pad.
A camera that is mounted in the second stage of Falcon 9 shows that the reusable first stage falls and back into the landing in Vandenberg, the 27th booster recreation of SpaceX in California and its 479th overall. / Credit: SpaceX
A few seconds later, the engine of the upper level closed to bring the vehicle into its planned preliminary orbit. The two satellites that made the primary Tracers shelter were used for about an hour and a half after the start.
Two of the other smallsats should be released in a slightly different orbit, with the rest of the tracers after the tracers a few minutes later.
Tracers is an acronym for tandem re -connections and CUSP electrodynamics -intelligence satellites. The twin spaceship built by Boeing will fly in tandem in the same orbit for 10 seconds to two minutes, which helps the researchers to measure quick changes that point out exactly how the sun wind “couples” with the magnetic field of the earth “couples”.
“So the sun is a burning, fiery plasma ball, and while it is burning, it blows out an exhaust that we call the sun wind, it is a plasma, and that always flows from the sun towards the earth,” said David Miles, director of the University of Iowa.
“And sometimes the magnetic field of the earth basically takes off as well when you have a stone in a stream that flows the water around it. But in other cases, these two systems become a mass, energy and impulse in the earth system.”
The impression of an artist from the Tracers satellites that fly one after the other in the same orbit. With two identical satellites, scientists expect to measure fast changes in almost earth environment when the sun wind interacts with the earth’s magnetic field. / Credit: NASA
This coupling is spectacular Auroral ads“But it also drives some of the negative things that we want to understand and mitigate how unplanned electrical currents in our electrical grids, which may lead to accelerated aging in electrical pipelines, disturbance of GPS, such things.”
“So we try to understand how the coupling between these systems in space and time changes,” said Miles.
The goals of the other satellites that started on Wednesday range from basic research to technology development. The polylingual experimental terminal or pext tests devices that can be used to send data from several state and commercial satellites via several communication protocols.
The aim is to optimize communication on and from a variety of satellites and space probes in order to improve efficiency and the lower costs.
The first of two Tracers satellites is released to fly alone. (SpaceX) / Credit: SpaceX
Another satellite, known as Athena EPIC, will continue the continuous measurements of the radiation budget of the earth, the balance between solar energy in the environment of the earth compared to the energy broadcast into space.
With spare parts from previous missions, Athena EPIC will test innovative lego-like satellite components that reduce the costs and at the same time reduce the size of the satellites.
The relativistic atmospheric loss or real satellite, another small cubesat, will examine how electrons in the van Allen radiation belts are fed out in order to have threatened satellites and other systems. Robyn Millan from Dartmouth University is the main researcher.
“The radiation belts are a region that surrounds the earth that is filled with energy -rich particles that travel near the light at the speed of light,” she said. “These are sometimes referred to as killer electrons because these particles represent a danger to our satellites in space. They also rain in our atmosphere, where they can contribute to the destruction of ozone.”
The real cubesat weighs less than 10 pounds and only measures one foot long. Despite its small size, it is a powerful particle sensor that will carry out very fast measurements of these electrons for the first time when entering our atmosphere, and this is really important to understand what it scattered. “
What makes it really unique, she said, was the small size of the sensor to have it worn by a cubesat, which “could enable future missions, especially those that need constellations of satellites”.
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