Liftoff: NASA TRACERS Earth Science Mission | SpaceX Falcon 9 in California
Technicians encapsulate the black twin satellites of NASA’s Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) mission within a payload fairing atop a shiny metallic stack of several other rideshare payloads at the Astrotech Space Operations facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission is a pair of twin satellites that will study how Earth’s magnetic shield—the magnetosphere—protects our planet from the supersonic stream of material from the Sun called solar wind.
TRACERS Emblem
NASA's TRACERS mission, or the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, successfully lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg in California on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT).
Three additional NASA-funded payloads were also launched: the Athena Economical Payload Integration Cost (EPIC) SmallSat, the Polylingual Experimental Terminal (PExT) technology demonstration, and the Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss (REAL) CubeSat.
TRACERS will fly in low Earth orbit through the polar cusps, funnel-shaped holes in the magnetic field, to study magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth's atmosphere.
Magnetic reconnection is a mysterious process that happens when the solar wind, made of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields from the Sun, collides with Earth's magnetic shield, causing magnetic field lines to violently snap and explosively fling away particles at high speeds. This process has huge impacts on Earth, from causing breathtaking auroras to disrupting communications and power grids on Earth.
Find out more about the TRACERS mission and how it will help us better understand the ways space weather affects us on Earth:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/tracers/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/tracers/
https://tracers.physics.uiowa.edu/
Image Credit: SpaceX
Release Date: July 23, 2025
Release Date: July 23, 2025
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