NASA’s MMS Spacecraft Transition to Tetrahedral Flying Formation

In the latter half of July 2015, the four satellites of the Magnetosphere Multi-scale (MMS) mission move into their tetrahedral formation flying configuration as part of the checkout for the science phase of the mission.
During this phase, the four spacecraft will have their orbits adjusted to eventually bring them to within about six miles of each other.

MMS investigates how the Sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other in a process that is important at the Sun, other planets, and everywhere in the universe, known as magnetic reconnection. Reconnection limits the performance of fusion reactors and is the final governor of geospace weather that affects modern technological systems such as telecommunications networks, GPS navigation, and electrical power grids. Four identically instrumented spacecraft measure plasmas, fields, and particles in a near-equatorial orbit that will frequently encounter reconnection in action.

Science Goals: MMS reveals, for the first time, the small-scale three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the elusively thin and fast-moving electron diffusion region. It does this in both of the key reconnection regions near Earth, where the most energetic events originate.