EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Nov 12, 2024 – Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing (NYSE: BA) company, completed two spacecraft for NASA’s Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, mission, which will measure the connection between solar wind and the magnetic field surrounding Earth.

The TRACERS mission is a pair of satellites that will study how the solar wind, the continuous stream of ionized particles escaping the Sun and pouring out into space, interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere, the region around Earth dominated by our planet’s magnetic field. The mission will help answer key questions about how the Sun influences Earth, and ultimately drives space weather that impacts technology and communications.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Nov. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing (NYSE: BA) company, completed two spacecraft for NASA's Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, mission, which will measure the connection between solar wind and the magnetic field surrounding Earth.

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.

The University of Iowa has received nearly $1.7 million from NASA to fund the OCHRE student-led sounding rocket mission that will study cusp dynamics in the Earth’s magnetosphere and help train the next generation of space physicists and instrumentalists.

NASA delegates visited the University of Iowa on March 7-8 to learn about the largest externally funded research project in institutional history.

The team of University of Iowa researchers and graduate students has been working on TRACERS, which is funded by NASA, since 2019. The two satellites are anticipated to launch in April 2025.

David Miles, a University of Iowa associate professor of physics and astronomy, recently took over as the principal investigator on a satellite mission that will study the near-Earth orbit. Miles is leading the project after the death of UI professor Craig Kletzing in August.

NASA has selected SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, and its Falcon 9 rocket to provide the launch service for the agency’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission.