WASHINGTON — Millennium Space Systems completed the production of two spacecraft for a NASA science mission focused on unraveling the complexities of space weather events, the company announced Nov. 12.
Known as TRACERS, short for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, the mission aims to understand the processes that occur when the solar wind — a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun — meets Earth’s magnetosphere, which is the protective magnetic field surrounding the planet. This interaction can lead to significant phenomena, including beautiful auroras and potentially harmful effects on satellites and power grids.
Millennium Space, a Boeing subsidiary based in El Segundo, California, received a contract in 2019 for the development and integration of two identical satellites that will work together to gather data. They will orbit Earth in a way that allows them to pass through a specific area known as the polar cusp, where Earth’s magnetic field dips down toward the surface.
Richard Prasad, TRACERS program manager at Millennium Space Systems, said the next step will be to integrate the instruments that will study changes in the magnetic and electric field, plasma particles and waves once in orbit. Following integration, the next phase is environmental testing prior to delivering the spacecraft to Vandenberg Space Force Base for a projected 2025 launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to a sun-synchronous orbit.
Millennium Space will also handle the ground operation of the satellites.
Prasad said this research will improve the ability to forecast space weather events, which can significantly affect satellites and infrastructure on Earth.
The estimated $165 million TRACERS mission is led by the University of Iowa and managed by Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, oversees the mission.
