After years of research and hard work, the TRACERS spacecraft, a duo satellite project, is set to launch on Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The project is led by University of Iowa Physics and Astronomy professor David Miles and costs around $170 million to create.
Work on this project hasn’t stopped since it started. NASA is one benefactor that has been vital to the project.
The study, named TRACERS for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, will gather information about how the Earth’s and Sun’s magnetic fields interact to help protect space satellites and understand space weather.
They will study how solar wind, or the ejection of large amounts of electromagnetic radiation from the sun, known as space weather, affects space operations.
In 2019, The Gazette reported that NASA gave the university its largest external research grant in school history, totalling $115 million. Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, are meant to help researchers learn more information on magnetic reconnection and how the sun transfers energy and mass.
The satellites will orbit the Earth’s North and South Poles for around a year before entering and burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The idea for the study was thought up over a conference dinner in 2017.
UI Physicist Craig Kletzing and university alum Stephen Fuselier were already in collaboration when the idea emerged. While working on this project, Kletzing received two grants from NASA.
On Aug. 10, 2023, a few weeks after official members of NASA came to Iowa City to clear the launch of TRACERS, Kletzing passed away from cancer, a diagnosis he received leading up to the big launch.
Miles took over as principal investigator while keeping Kletzing’s legacy in mind. In Kletzin’s honor, team members embedded his purple guitar pick from his city-wide jam band performances in the satellite’s main electronic box.
The UI’s Department of Physics and Astronomy is holding a watch party to view the live launch of the TRACERS mission. The event is from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Van Allen Hall on campus. The event is open to the public and free to attend. The space launch window is from 1:13 p.m. to 2:11 p.m.