NASA is going to launch tomorrow a series of five satellites known as THEMIS (an acronym for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms).
NASA postponed by one day the launch of the Themis spacecraft series that was supposed to take place at 01:05 Israel time on February 17. The launch is now scheduled for February 18 after midnight. The reason for the postponement is strong winds at high altitude, as reported to NASA via weather balloons that were launched into the atmosphere. These winds are stronger than allowed for missiles of this type.
The satellite constellation is designed to solve the mystery behind the aurora borealis phenomenon. This phenomenon is a kind of "avalanche" of magnetic energy driven by the solar wind and which amplifies the north and south pole lights.
THEMIS will help us understand how and why radiation storms in space wreak havoc on satellites, high voltage lines and communication systems.
The THEMIS mission consists of five identical satellites - the largest number of scientific satellites that NASA has ever put into orbit on a single launcher. The unique constellation of satellites will be positioned along the Sun-Earth line, and will collect coordinated measurements once every four days. It is estimated that it will be possible to observe about 30 cases of aurora borealis during the planned period of the satellites' activity - two years. The data collected from the five satellites will determine the point where the aurora storms begin, an operation that was impossible to do with a single satellite.
This phenomenon is known as substorms. While the satellites will observe the phenomenon from above, about 20 ground stations in North America will monitor the aurora borealis.
Each satellite contains a fluxgate magnetomer, an electrostatic analyzer, a solid state telescope, a magnetometer and an electric field detector. Ground command of the satellites and their scientific operations will be managed by the University of California's Space Science Laboratory
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Kudos to NASA…