NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) now is targeting no earlier than summer 2025 for launch in order to give the mission spacecraft team additional time to prepare.
Q3 FY 2025 - TRACERS launch readiness
York Space Systems today announced its Bard mission is ready for launch. Bard will flight-demonstrate the Polylingual Experimental Terminal (PExT), an advanced communications technology developed in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and NASA's SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program. The terminal is designed to enable real-time interoperability between government and commercial satellite relay networks—a first-of-its-kind capability as NASA shifts toward a commercial satellite relay communications architecture.[...]Built on York's flight-proven platform, Bard is set to demonstrate the power of wideband polylingual terminals—equipped with software-defined radios that can dynamically switch across frequency bands, protocols, and relay providers.The on-orbit demonstration will conclude April 2026, after validating the ability to communicate seamlessly with both NASA's legacy Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) and multiple commercial networks, as well as a direct-to-Earth link. This dynamic communications capability represents a critical risk reduction activity as emerging NASA missions transition towards acquiring commercial space relay services by 2031."Bard is yet another proof point that York continues to deliver a full spectrum of missions and customers—from high-performance constellations to critical pathfinder demonstrations," said Melanie Preisser, GM and Executive VP of York. "This is just another example of how York has become the provider of choice for deploying next-generation capabilities with the speed, scale, and operational readiness that customers demand."The Bard mission also showcases the same spacecraft operations backbone powering York's growing constellation portfolio. Operated through the company's secure, cloud-based Multi-Mission Operations Center (MMOC), Bard will demonstrate York's ability to support real-time command and control for multiple simultaneous missions, all from a single, autonomous infrastructure.
Current launch window: SpaceX Transporter 11 ride share, July 2024
3.1 Description of MissionThe spacecraft will be one of several payloads of a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket. The spacecraft will launch into a circular SSO at 515 ± 15 km altitude and 97.40 ± 0.1-degree inclination with an LTAN of 22:30:00 ± 30 min. The nominal mission duration is 6 months.
NASA's SPRITE cubesat (Supernova Remnants and Proxies for ReIonization Testbed Experiment) has switched from the TRACERS mission (0611-EX-CN-2025) [May 28]Quote from: Technical DescriptionThe satellite will be launched as a secondary payload aboard SpaceX Transporter 15, No Earlier Than October 1, 2025. It will be inserted into a circular orbit at 510 km, on an inclination from the equator of 97.4 degrees and an LTAN of 1000. Transmission will begin 30 minutes after deployment, and cease at the end of the mission (nominally 2 years after launch). Atmospheric friction will slow the satellite and reduce the altitude of the orbit, until de-orbiting occurs approximately 2.5 years after the end of the nominal mission. See the Orbital Debris Assessment Report for details.The spacecraft is a single unit with the dimensions of 12x ~ 10 cm X 10 cm X 10 cm CubeSat modules (giving an overall dimension of 22.6 cm X 22.6 cm X 39 cm.) The total mass is about 19.5 Kg.
The satellite will be launched as a secondary payload aboard SpaceX Transporter 15, No Earlier Than October 1, 2025. It will be inserted into a circular orbit at 510 km, on an inclination from the equator of 97.4 degrees and an LTAN of 1000. Transmission will begin 30 minutes after deployment, and cease at the end of the mission (nominally 2 years after launch). Atmospheric friction will slow the satellite and reduce the altitude of the orbit, until de-orbiting occurs approximately 2.5 years after the end of the nominal mission. See the Orbital Debris Assessment Report for details.The spacecraft is a single unit with the dimensions of 12x ~ 10 cm X 10 cm X 10 cm CubeSat modules (giving an overall dimension of 22.6 cm X 22.6 cm X 39 cm.) The total mass is about 19.5 Kg.
NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) twin spacecraft have completed the final pre-shipment tests and have arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in preparations for launch later this year.[...]After Millennium Space Systems built the two spacecraft, the team integrated the instruments, and the spacecraft passed several rigorous environmental, mechanical, and systems verification tests. These tests are to ensure the mission is fully prepared for space, with additional pre-launch tests planned to validate final readiness. The TRACERS’ twin satellites will fly in tandem — one behind the other — through the polar cusps, funnel-shaped regions where Earth’s magnetic field opens over the north and south poles. This will allow scientists to observe how quickly reconnection changes and evolves by comparing data collected by each satellite.Now at Vandenberg, technicians will integrate the TRACERS spacecraft with the launch vehicle, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and conduct final preparations for launch. The launch window is set to open no earlier than summer 2025 from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
John Bonnell, project physicist at SSL, describes @NASA's @TRACERSMission, led by @uiowa. TRACERS will study the magnetopause (the boundary between the Earth's magnetosphere and the solar wind) with the aim of better understanding space weather.
NASA’s TRACERS Spacecraft Arrive at Launch Site [Jun 17]Now at Vandenberg, technicians will integrate the TRACERS spacecraft with the launch vehicle, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and conduct final preparations for launch. The launch window is set to open no earlier than summer 2025 from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Now at Vandenberg, technicians will integrate the TRACERS spacecraft with the launch vehicle, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and conduct final preparations for launch. Launch is targeted for no earlier than late July 2025 from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
TRACERS consists of two identical spacecraft, a first for a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission, in a circular, Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) that transits the cusp >3000 times during the 12-month primary science mission. The inter-spacecraft, along-track separation varies from 10 to 120 seconds (75 to 900 km, or 0.1 to 1 deg along track), through the course of the mission.[...]In contrast, the low altitude (∼590 km) TRACERS spacecraft cross the full latitudinal extent of the cusp in 30 s to 2 mins in a 96 min orbit.[...]TRACERS consists of two nearly identical spacecraft, termed T1 & T2, that take advantage of Millennium Space Systems’ ALTAIR core bus platform. The spacecraft are passively spin-stabilized and operate at a nominal rate of 10 RPM. For TRACERS, the platform and overall vehicle design is optimized to provide substantial improvement in electrostatic and magnetic cleanliness to accommodate the instrumentation required for primary science objectives.[...]The TRACERS vehicles will be launched in a stacked configuration as shown in Fig. 18 as a primary rideshare or “cake topper” on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Each TRACERS spacecraft has a not-to-exceed launch mass of 200 kg.
The MAGIC flight demonstration comprised the construction, qualification, and flight of magnetometer hosted payloads on the University of Iowa led TRACERS SMEX mission. MAGIC is flown in parallel with the originally proposed UCLA magnetometer (Strangeway et al, Current Issue) on a do-no-harm basis. TRACERS cannot rely on MAGIC to meet its science objectives, since MAGIC is a technology demonstration, however, MAGIC’s flight provides some resiliency in case of failure of the primary magnetometer, enables cross-comparison and validation, and provides an opportunity for gradient-driven signal processing to remove local magnetic noise.The MAGIC flight payload consists of two fluxgate magnetometer instruments that measure the DC and low-frequency magnetic field. MAGIC-1 uses a sensor based on the traditional 1” ring-core geometry while MAGIC-2 uses the novel Tesseract sensor design (Greene et al. 2022, 2024). MAGIC adhered to NASA’s NPR 7120.8A standard for technology demonstration, except where it directly interfaces with the host mission. There it adhered to the standards of NPR 7120.5F to ensure it did not have a negative impact on the mission. MAGIC followed a do-no-harm approach appropriate for a Technical Demonstration hosted-payload.MAGIC is mounted 20 cm along the 70 cm primary MAG magnetometer bracket (Fig. 2), allowing differential measurements of the magnetic noise of the spacecraft. The MAGIC electronics are accommodated as a small, independent electronics box mounted to the side of the TRACERS Main Electronics Box (MEB). MAGIC interfaces electrically through the MEB developed at University of Iowa, allowing in-house interface testing, minimizing the additional demands imposed on the spacecraft, and ensuring MAGIC can be powered off in the event of on-orbit issues. The Magnetic Search Coil (MSC) magnetometer, mounted on the opposite bracket, is heavier than the existing MAG fluxgate so the MAGIC sensor was accommodated without increasing the total bracket assembly mass, as MAGIC replaced existing spin-ballast.
NASA is collaborating with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to test a wideband terminal called the Polylingual Experimental Terminal, or PExT, during a flight demonstration. The body-mounted payload includes 0.6-meter high gain antenna, which will launch into low Earth orbit on a York Space System S-CLASS bus. PExT will rideshare alongside NASA’s TRACERS mission, launching no earlier than the summer of 2025.
Launch: NET Late July 2025
NASA to Brief Media on New Mission to Study Earth’s Magnetic ShieldJul 10, 2025NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 17, to share information about the agency’s upcoming Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than late July.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. As they fly pole to pole in a Sun-synchronous orbit, the two TRACERS spacecraft will measure how magnetic explosions send these solar wind particles zooming down into Earth’s atmosphere — and how these explosions shape the space weather that impacts our satellites, technology, and astronauts.Also launching on this flight will be three additional NASA-funded payloads. The Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost) SmallSat, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is designed to demonstrate an innovative, configurable way to put remote-sensing instruments into orbit faster and more affordably. The Polylingual Experimental Terminal technology demonstration, managed by the agency’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program, will showcase new technology that empowers missions to roam between communications networks in space, like cell phones roam between providers on Earth. Finally, the Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss (REAL) CubeSat, led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, will use space as a laboratory to understand how high-energy particles within the bands of radiation that surround Earth are naturally scattered into the atmosphere, aiding the development of methods for removing these damaging particles to better protect satellites and the critical ground systems they support.Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:nasa.gov/liveParticipants include:Joe Westlake, division director, Heliophysics, NASA HeadquartersKory Priestley, principal investigator, Athena EPIC, NASA LangleyGreg Heckler, deputy program manager for capability development, SCaN, NASA HeadquartersDavid Miles, principal investigator for TRACERS, University of IowaRobyn Millan, REAL principal investigator, Dartmouth CollegeTo participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 10 a.m. on July 17 to Sarah Frazier at: [email protected]. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. [...]
Message Originator: Los Angeles/Long BeachSAFETY / PACIFIC OCEAN / SPACE OPERATIONS / CCGD11 BNM 9009-25 / Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:02:58 -04001. SPACE LAUNCH OPERATIONS, WHICH MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO SURFACE VESSELS, WILLBE CONDUCTED WITHIN PORTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING HAZARD AREAS FOR TRACERS:A. FROM 30-25-00N/121-30-00WTO 30-24-00N/121-35-00WTO 34-33-00N/120-46-00WTO 34-41-00N/120-37-00WTO 34-31-00N/120-31-00WTO 33-17-00N/120-37-00W TO BEGINNINGB. FROM 30-21-00N/121-48-00WTO 30-40-00N/121-31-00WTO 30-37-00N/121-07-00WTO 30-14-00N/120-57-00WTO 29-52-00N/121-06-00WTO 29-44-00N/121-27-00WTO 29-59-00N/121-46-00W TO BEGINNING2. HAZARD PERIODS FOR PRIMARY LAUNCH DAY AND BACKUP LAUNCH DAYS (ALL TIMESARE REPRESENTED AS ZULU TIME UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED):A.22/1805 JUL 25 TO 22/1944 JUL 25.23/1805 JUL 25 TO 23/1944 JUL 25.24/1805 JUL 25 TO 24/1944 JUL 25.25/1805 JUL 25 TO 25/1944 JUL 25.26/1805 JUL 25 TO 26/1944 JUL 25.27/1805 JUL 25 TO 27/1944 JUL 25.28/1805 JUL 25 TO 28/1944 JUL 25.B.22/1805 JUL 25 TO 22/2003 JUL 25.23/1805 JUL 25 TO 23/2003 JUL 25.24/1805 JUL 25 TO 24/2003 JUL 25.25/1805 JUL 25 TO 25/2003 JUL 25.26/1805 JUL 25 TO 26/2003 JUL 25.27/1805 JUL 25 TO 27/2003 JUL 25.28/1805 JUL 25 TO 28/2003 JUL 25.3. THE U.S. COAST GUARD IS PROVIDING THIS NOTICE TO ADVISE MARINERS OF THESEHAZARDOUS AREAS IDENTIFIED BY U.S. SPACE FORCE AND/OR A COMMERCIAL SPACEOPERATION, WHICH MAY IMPACT NAVIGATION INTERESTS. NAVIGATION HAZARDS FROMROCKET LAUNCH ACTIVITIES MAY INCLUDE FREE FALLING DEBRIS AND/OR DESCENDINGVEHICLES OR VEHICLE COMPONENTS UNDER VARIOUS MEANS OF CONTROL. MARINERS AREURGED TO AVOID WATERS WITHIN ROCKET FLIGHT TRAJECTORIES/HAZARD AREAS DURINGLAUNCH WINDOWS AS DETAILED ABOVE.4. FOR MORE INFORMATION, MARINERS MAY CONTACT THE U.S. SPACE FORCE LAUNCHINFORMATION HOTLINE AT 1-800-470-7232 OR BY VISITINGWWW.PATRICK.SPACEFORCE.MIL. FOR NAVIGATIONAL SAFETY, MARINERS ARE ADVISED TOREFER TO THE GEOSPATIAL CHART AT WWW.NAVCEN.USCG.GOV/CHART FOR INFORMATION ONSPACE LAUNCH AND RECOVERY OPERATIONS (SOLAR).CANCEL AT////BT
Primary Launch Day 22 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 23 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 24 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 25 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 26 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 27 JUL 1805Z-2003ZBackup Launch Day 28 JUL 1805Z-2003Z
Experts discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than late July. 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. As they fly pole to pole in a Sun-synchronous orbit, the two TRACERS spacecraft will measure how magnetic explosions send these solar wind particles zooming down into Earth’s atmosphere — and how these explosions shape the space weather that impacts our satellites, technology, and astronauts. Also launching on this flight will be three additional NASA-funded payloads.
High above us, particles from the Sun hurtle toward Earth, colliding with the upper atmosphere and creating powerful explosions in a murky process called magnetic reconnection. A single magnetic reconnection event can release as much energy as the entire United States uses in a day.NASA’s new TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission will study magnetic reconnection, answering key questions about how it shapes the impacts of the Sun and space weather on our daily lives.The TRACERS spacecraft are slated to launch no earlier than late July 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The two TRACERS spacecraft will orbit Earth to study how the solar wind — a continuous outpouring of electrically charged particles from the Sun — interacts with Earth’s magnetic shield, the magnetosphere.What Is Magnetic Reconnection?As solar wind flows out from the Sun, it carries the Sun’s embedded magnetic field out across the solar system. Reaching speeds over one million miles per hour, this soup of charged particles and magnetic field plows into planets in its path.“Earth’s magnetosphere acts as a protective bubble that deflects the brunt of the solar wind’s force. You can think of it as a bar magnet that's rotating and floating around in space,” said John Dorelli, TRACERS mission science lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “As the solar wind collides with Earth’s magnetic field, this interaction builds up energy that can cause the magnetic field lines to snap and explosively fling away nearby particles at high speeds — this is magnetic reconnection.”Openings in Earth’s magnetic field at the North and South Poles, called polar cusps, act as funnels allowing charged particles to stream down towards Earth and collide with atmospheric gases. These phenomena are pieces of the space weather system that is in constant motion around our planet — whose impacts range from breathtaking auroras to disruption of communications systems and power grids. In May 2024, Earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years, which affected high-voltage power lines and transformers, forced trans-Atlantic flights to change course, and caused GPS-guided tractors to veer off-course.How Will TRACERS Study Magnetic Reconnection?The TRACERS mission’s twin satellites, each a bit larger than a washing machine, will fly in tandem, one behind the other, in a relatively low orbit about 360 miles above Earth. Traveling over 16,000 mph, each satellite hosts a suite of instruments to measure different aspects of extremely hot, ionized gas called plasma and how it interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere.The satellites will focus where Earth’s magnetic field dips down to the ground at the North polar cusp. By placing the twin TRACERS satellites in a Sun-synchronous orbit, they always pass through Earth’s dayside polar cusp, studying thousands of reconnection events at these concentrated areas.This will build a step-by-step picture of how magnetic reconnection changes over time and from Earth’s dayside to its nightside.NASA’s TRICE-2 mission also studied magnetic reconnection near Earth, but with a pair of sounding rockets launched into the northern polar cusp over the Norwegian Sea in 2018.“The TRICE mission took great data. It took a snapshot of the Earth system in one state. It proved that these instruments could make this kind of measurement and achieve this kind of science,” said David Miles, TRACERS principal investigator at the University of Iowa. “But the system's more complicated than that. The TRACERS mission demonstrates how you can use multi-spacecraft technology to get a picture of how things are moving and evolving.”Since previous missions could only take one measurement of an event per launch, too many changes in the region prevented forming a full picture. Following each other closely in orbit, the twin TRACERS satellites will provide multiple snapshots of the same area in rapid succession, spaced as closely as 10 seconds apart from each other, reaching a record-breaking 3,000 measurements in one year. These snapshots will build a picture of how the whole Earth system behaves in reaction to space weather, allowing scientists to better understand how to predict space weather in the magnetosphere.Working Across Missions in Solar HarmonyThe TRACERS mission will collaborate with other NASA heliophysics missions, which are strategically placed near Earth and across the solar system. At the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe closely observes our closest star, including magnetic reconnection there and its role in heating and accelerating the solar wind that drives the reconnection events investigated by TRACERS.Data from recently launched NASA missions, EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer), studying electrical currents at Earth’s nightside, and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) studying the solar wind and interactions in Earth’s atmosphere, can be combined with observations from TRACERS. With research from these missions, scientists will be able to get a more complete understanding of how and when Earth’s protective magnetic shield can suddenly connect with solar wind, allowing the Sun’s material into Earth’s system.“The TRACERS mission will be an important addition to NASA’s heliophysics fleet.” said Reinhard Friedel, TRACERS program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The missions in the fleet working together increase understanding of our closest star to improve our ability to understand, predict, and prepare for space weather impacts on humans and technology in space.”
Visualization of the orbit of the twin TRACERS satellites (pink) exploring electricity and magnetism in Earth's polar regions. The light-blue 'flows' represent the particle currents traveling from the edge of the magnetosphere, through the region of the ionosphere, and back out to the magnetosphere.
Vandenberg SFB invites the public to a presentation on NASA’s upcoming TRACERS satellite mission, a groundbreaking initiative designed to deepen scientific understanding of the Sun-Earth connection.The event will take place on Monday, July 21, from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Vandenberg Space Force Base Space and Missile Technology Center, located at 1335 Marshallia Ranch Rd, Lompoc, CA 93437. No base access is required to attend.The presentation will feature leading NASA scientists and experts, including Norman Phelps, TRACERS Mission Manager for NASA Launch Services; Dr. David Miles, Principal Investigator for TRACERS and an astrophysicist at the University of Iowa; and Dr. Joseph Westlake, Director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. Together, they will provide insights into the TRACERS mission and its role in advancing heliophysics research.
170813Z JUL 25NAVAREA XII 439/25(18).NORTH PACIFIC.CALIFORNIA.1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, ROCKET LAUNCHING: A. 221805Z TO 221944Z JUL, ALTERNATE 1805Z TO 1944Z DAILY 23 THRU 28 JUL IN AREA BOUND BY 30-25.00N 121-30.00W, 30-24.00N 121-35.00W, 34-33.00N 120-46.00W, 34-41.00N 120-37.00W, 34-31.00N 120-31.00W, 33-17.00N 120-37.00W. B. 221805Z TO 222003Z JUL, ALTERNATE 1805Z TO 2003Z DAILY 23 THRU 28 JUL IN AREA BOUND BY 30-21.00N 121-48.00W, 30-40.00N 121-31.00W, 30-37.00N 121-07.00W, 30-14.00N 120-57.00W, 29-52.00N 121-06.00W, 29-44.00N 121-27.00W, 29-59.00N 121-46.00W.2. CANCEL THIS MSG 282103Z JUL 25.//
170747Z JUL 25HYDROPAC 1811/25(61).INDIAN OCEAN.DNC 02.1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, SPACE DEBRIS 2022Z TO 2208Z DAILY 22 THRU 28 JUL IN AREA BOUND BY 42-33.00S 027-43.00E, 43-03.00S 025-08.00E, 50-21.00S 027-45.00E, 49-51.00S 030-42.00E.2. CANCEL THIS MSG 282308Z JUL 25.//
QuoteExperts discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than late July. 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. As they fly pole to pole in a Sun-synchronous orbit, the two TRACERS spacecraft will measure how magnetic explosions send these solar wind particles zooming down into Earth’s atmosphere — and how these explosions shape the space weather that impacts our satellites, technology, and astronauts. Also launching on this flight will be three additional NASA-funded payloads.
SPACEX TRACERS, VANDENBERG SFB, CAPRIMARY: 07/22/25 1805Z-2003ZBACKUP: 07/23/25 1805Z-2003Z
