NASA mission to decode Earth and Sun's explosive interplay

Washington: While NASA has achieved the impossible by flying four identically equipped spacecraft together to capture 3D views of subtle magnetic interactions in space, the $1.1 billion mission is set to beam back valuable data beginning September this year.

During the mission's first phase, the spacecraft will travel through reconnection sites on the Sun-side of Earth where the orbit extends out toward the Sun to around 47,500 miles.Nearly one year later, ground controllers then will move the spacecraft to Earth's night-side or magnetotail where the magnetic fields also reconnect -- an orbit that extends away from Earth to almost 99,000 miles, nearly halfway to the moon.

The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 421 rocket on March 12 this year. The aim is to study the high-speed interactions between Earth's magnetic field and the Sun to learn more about the mechanisms responsible for energy discharges that drive auroras and play havoc with satellite navigation, communications and power grids.