Key Takeaways:
- TRACERS will study how the sun's magnetic field connects with Earth's.
- Two satellites will orbit together to observe this magnetic connection.
- The mission improves our understanding of space weather and auroras.
- This builds upon previous research using smaller rockets.
Mission highlight: NASA TRACERS on the cusp of launching
NASA’s TRACERS mission (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) headlines a July 22, 2:13 p.m. EDT Falcon 9 rideshare launch, flying alongside several secondary payloads from Vandenberg. TRACERS consists of two identical spacecraft designed to study magnetic reconnection — the explosive process that drives space weather and connects the Sun’s magnetic field to Earth’s. The satellites will orbit in formation through a dynamic region near Earth’s magnetic cusp, where solar wind particles funnel into the atmosphere in the polar regions.
Principal investigator David Miles of the University of Iowa explained in a statement how TRACERS builds on an earlier mission, TRICE-II, which was flown by a pair of sounding rockets: “The TRICE mission took great data. It took a snapshot of the Earth system in one state. It proved that these instruments could make this kind of measurement and achieve this kind of science,” Miles said. “But the system’s more complicated than that. The TRACERS mission demonstrates how you can use multi-spacecraft technology to get a picture of how things are moving and evolving.”
The mission is part of NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program and aims to deepen our understanding of how magnetic energy is stored and released across the solar system — a key factor in both auroral activity and satellite-damaging storms.
Last week’s recap
China kicked things off last week with the Tianzhou 9 cargo spacecraft, which lifted off July 14 aboard a Long March 7 to resupply the Tiangong space station. On July 15, a Falcon 9 launched another Starlink 15-2 batch from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Just hours later, in the early morning of July 16, SpaceX launched the third batch of satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper from Cape Canaveral. And on July 18, a final Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg with Starlink Group 17-3, capping off the week with another broadband expansion.
Other missions this week
Falcon 9 Block 5 | O3b mPOWER 9 & 10 is scheduled to lift off Monday, July 21 at 5:12 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, deploying two high-throughput satellites to bolster SES’s next-gen internet constellation.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-26 will follow in the early hours of Thursday, July 24, launching at 5:12 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral as part of SpaceX’s near-weekly cadence.
Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Ionosfera-M №3 & 4 will launch from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome on Friday, July 25, at 1:54 a.m. EDT, carrying two satellites that will monitor the Earth’s ionosphere and magnetosphere to improve space weather forecasting and communications reliability.
Vega C | CO3D & MicroCarb is targeting Friday, July 25 at 10:03 p.m. EDT from French Guiana. The flight will deploy four Airbus-built CO3D satellites to create high-resolution 3D surface maps and CNES’s MicroCarb satellite, which will measure atmospheric carbon dioxide with precision to support global climate science.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-2 is expected to launch Friday at 10:09 p.m. EDT from Vandenberg, continuing the expansion of Starlink’s polar and high-inclination coverage.
Eris | TestFlight 1 is now delayed again, with Gilmour Space Technologies aiming for no earlier than (NET) July 27. After operational setbacks and unfavorable upper-level wind forecasts scrubbed this week’s window, the company released a statement saying, “Not the outcome we hoped for, but that’s the nature of test flights. Chin up and eyes forward to NET 27 July!”
Looking Ahead
The final week of July features two high-profile missions. India’s GSLV Mk II is slated to launch NISAR — a joint NASA-ISRO Earth-observing radar satellite — on Wednesday, July 30. Then, on July 31, SpaceX will launch Crew-11 from Kennedy Space Center, sending a new quartet of astronauts to the International Space Station aboard Dragon for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
