14 DAY TRIAL // Experts at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, will soon begin installing the first science suite onto a newly-completed instrument deck, which will act as the basis for one of four satellites that will make up the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission.
The platform will host 25 sensors, whose role will be to measure and reveal the microscale physics at work in magnetic reconnection, a critical process going on high above the surface of the planet. The satellites will also study energetic particle acceleration, and magnetic turbulences.
Each of the four vehicles will have a similar setup, which means that the entire constellation will feature a total of 100 sensors. By flying in formation, the vehicles will be able to cover these elusive phenomena from multiple angles simultaneously.
“This is the first time NASA has ever built four satellites near simultaneously like this. It feels like we're planning a giant game of musical chairs to produce multiple copies of a spacecraft,” GSFC MMS project manager, Craig Tooley, explains.