MMS Phase 2b: Transitioning to Magnetosphere Science on the Darkside

  • Released Thursday, February 9th, 2017
  • Updated Friday, August 25th, 2023 at 12:08AM
  • ID: 4549

Completing its study of magnetic reconnection at the boundary between Earth and the sun, the MMS spacecraft fleet transitions its orbit to studying magnetospheric events near the shadow of Earth.

Current scheduled maneuver times (subject to change) are:

  • February 1, 2017: Resize perigee (the point on the orbit closest to Earth) to 60km

  • February 9, 2017: First apogee (point on the orbit farthest from Earth) raising maneuver

  • April 8, 2017: Final apogee raising maneuver

  • April 16, 2017: Perigee resizing

  • April 26, 2017: Reinitializing formation flying

The magnetosphere boundary represents a point of balance between the pressure of the solar wind passing Earth and the outward magnetic pressure of Earth's magnetic field. The location in this visualization is representative at may not accurately reflect the position relative to the spacecraft at any given future time.

For More Information

See NASA.gov



Credits

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio


Missions

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Datasets used in this visualization

SPICE Ephemerides (A.K.A. SPICE Ephemerides)
Ephemeris NASA/JPL 2017-01-03 to 2017-05-16

Satellite and planetary ephemerides

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