Abstract
Abstract The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is the fourth mission of the Solar Terrestrial Probe (STP) program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The MMS mission was launched on March 12, 2015. The MMS mission consists of four identically instrumented spin-stabilized observatories which are flown in formation to perform the first definitive study of magnetic reconnection in space. The MMS mission was presented with numerous technical challenges, including the simultaneous construction and launch of four identical large spacecraft with 100 instruments total, stringent electromagnetic cleanliness requirements, closed-loop precision maneuvering and pointing of spinning flexible spacecraft, on-board GPS based orbit determination far above the GPS constellation, and a flight dynamics design that enables formation flying with separation distances as small as 10 km. This paper describes the overall mission design and presents an overview of the design, testing, and early on-orbit operation of the spacecraft systems and instrument suite.
Highlights
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solar Terrestrial Probe mission to investigate and understand the fundamental plasma physics phenomenon of magnetic reconnection, the conversion of magnetic energy into particle energy by means of which energy is transferred from the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere and released explosively in the magnetotail (Burch et al 2015, this issue)
This paper describes the design, construction, testing, launch and commissioning of the four MMS Observatories
During the first five and half months (165 days) of the mission while the orbit is precessing toward the region of interest (ROI), the observatories are commissioned and the constellation is maneuvered into its initial tetrahedral science formation with a separation distance of approximately 160 km
Summary
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a NASA Solar Terrestrial Probe mission to investigate and understand the fundamental plasma physics phenomenon of magnetic reconnection, the conversion of magnetic energy into particle energy by means of which energy is transferred from the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere and released explosively in the magnetotail (Burch et al 2015, this issue). May 2002 and by 2006 had assigned the mission to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and selected the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to lead the MMS science investigation. The mission was directed to be an in-house mission with GSFC providing project management and systems engineering, mission assurance, the spacecraft, the mission operations infrastructure, and integration and test of the four observatories. This paper describes the design, construction, testing, launch and commissioning of the four MMS Observatories. A concise overview of the mission follows here to provide context for the subsequent sections of this paper
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