MMS

Mission Life

Conformation July 2009

Planned Launch Fourth Quarter of 2014 (August 14, 2010)

2 Years and 6 Months in Orbit

Launch Vehicle Atlas V 421

Estimated Cost $135.75 Million

2 Phase Orbit Strategy

Main Mission (SMART- Solving Magnetoshperic, Acceleration, Reconnection, and Turbulence) Overview Unmanned space mission intended to study the microphysics of magnetic reconnection using the Earth' magnetosphere as the test ground. The mission also intends to investigate how energy conversion that occurs in reconnection accelerates particles to high energies, and what role plasma turbulence plays in the process, and how they all affect the phenomena known as "space weather". Basically: Explore the plasma processes that govern the interaction of the Earth's magnetic field with the solar wind. Magnetic Reconnection- plasma-physical process that converts magnetic energy into heat.

MMS

Part 2

The mms spacecraft will employ an atlas v expendable launch vehicle to get the mms into orbit of about 1.2earth radii Orbit: It will orbit the earth at 1.2 earth radii by 12earth (dayside); 1.2 Earth radii by 25 earth radii on the night side Science payload: The MMS mission calls for four identical spacecraft in order to gather the measurements needed by NASA. Each spacecraft will have identical scientific payloads. The MMS spacecraft were designed for simplicity and ease of packaging to simplify launch procedures. the type of scientific instrumentation the mms employs is: Fast Plasma Instrument; FIELDS; Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer; Energetic Particles; Active Spacecraft Potential Control; Central Instrument Data Processor Also, the spacecraft has a cylinder structure in the center of the octagon. When stacked on top of each other, this forms a very strong structure capable of withstanding the pressure of takeoff. The spacecraft are powered by solar energy. Eight solar array panels allow the spacecraft to capture the suns' energy. The spacecrafts have a very "open" configuration which allows easy access to instruments inside the spacecraft. The propulsion system consists of four hydrazine propellant tanks located within the thrust tube and four axial and eight radial thrusters. The MMS spacecraft are spin-stabilized, with a nominal spin rate of 3 rpm. Attitude knowledge is provided by 4 star cameras, 2 three-axis accelerometers, and 2 sun sensors, with the thrusters being used for attitude and orbit adjustment maneuvers. A GPS receiver on board each spacecraft provides absolute position information. In addition, each spacecraft employs an interspacecraft ranging and alarm system (IRAS) to determine its location relative to the other three spacecraft.

Benefits and Effects of the Magnetosphere

"The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar-Terrestrial Probe mission comprising four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth's magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of magnetic reconnection, a fundamental plasma-physical process that converts magnetic energy into heat and the kinetic energy of charged particles. In addition to seeking to solve the mystery of the small-scale physics of the reconnection process, MMS will also investigate how the energy conversion that occurs in magnetic reconnection accelerates particles to high energies and what role plasma turbulence plays in reconnection events. These processes -- magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration, turbulence -- occur in all astrophysical plasma systems but can be studied in situ only in our solar system and most efficiently only in Earth's magnetosphere, where they control the dynamics of the geospace environment and play an important role in the phenomena known as "space weather."

As Quoted by: http://mms.space.swri.edu/

Word Bank

Diffusion - the spreading of atmospheric constituents or properties by turbulent motion as well as molecular motion of the air.

Magnetometer - an instrument for measuring the intensity of a magnetic field, esp. the earth's magnetic field.

Magnetosphere - the outer region of the earth's ionosphere, where the earth's magnetic field controls the motion of charged particles, as in the Van Allen belts.

Microphysics - the branch of physics dealing with physical objects that are not large enough to be observed and treated directly, as elementary particles, atoms, and molecules.

Magnetotail - the narrow and elongated region of the magnetosphere of the earth or of another planet that extends in the direction away from the sun.

Orbit - The curved path, usually elliptical, described by a planet, satellite, spaceship, etc., around a celestial body, as the sun.

Outer space - Space beyond the atmosphere of the earth.

Plasma - a highly ionized gas containing an approximately equal number of positive ions and electrons.

Solar wind - an emanation from the sun's corona consisting of a flow of charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, that interacts with the magnetic field of the earth and other planetary bodies.

Spectrometer - an optical device for measuring wavelengths, deviation of refracted rays, and angles between faces of a prism