NASA soon will launch a mission with a big name and an even bigger purpose in which students from the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus will play a key role.
The $1.1 billion Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, will study more deeply how the magnetic fields surrounding Earth disconnect and reconnect, and the commands powering its science instruments will be beamed to space by student employees of CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics, or LASP.
“It’s a fairly unique program, because we’re able to really involve students in areas of work that would not usually be accessible,” said Chris Pankratz, manager of the MMS mission’s Science Operations Center (SOC) at LASP. “The students here go on to really impressive careers.”
Studying the relationship between solar-wind energy and Earth’s protective magnetic space environment — or magnetosphere — will help scientists better understand and predict space weather events that can wreak havoc on GPS, communication networks, electrical power grids, defense systems and more.
Studying this in the “cosmic laboratory” offered by the sun and Earth will also help scientists understand how other planetary systems mirroring ours work, said LASP director Daniel Baker, the lead MMS scientist in the operations center.
“If you’re an astronomer, how is it that you see things in the visible universe? You see them because of energetic particles moving in strong magnetic fields,” he said. “As we get to solar storms that drive severe space weather, then we’re really giving a much deeper insight into how those things work — when they’re dangerous, when they’re benign.”
The four MMS satellites, each containing an identical suite of 25 science instruments — two of which have LASP fingerprints on them — are scheduled to blast off atop a ULA Atlas V rocket at 8:44 MDT, Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Each octagonal spacecraft is about 12 to 13 feet in diameter and about 4 feet high. And, when all antennae are deployed, each measures about 90 feet from tip to tip, with longer booms extending about 400 feet from the sides.
The satellites will orbit Earth arranged in an adjustable tetrahedron formation, moving between 4,400 miles and 47,000 miles altitude. Those orbits eventually will extend to a peak altitude of 93,000 miles above Earth, allowing measurements from all sides of the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts.
The spacecraft will spin at about three rotations per minute while the science instruments, guided by commands from LASP, measure the microscopic three-dimensional magnetic reconnection structure.
LASP also will collect data for analysis by scientists, led by principal investigator Jim Burch of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio
, and work closely with MMS mission control at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
For MMS, 20 CU undergrads will work alongside professionals to staff the operations center around the clock. To perform this work, students went through intensive training and passed the same certification exams as the pros.
Maggie Williams, a CU aerospace engineering junior from Highlands Ranch, says she feels “pretty lucky” for the opportunity to work in the SOC.
“We really get a unique experience that you can’t get at most universities. It’s really a learning experience as much as it is a job,” she said. “It’s a lot of pressure being the one sending the commands, but it’s also really great to hear back what we’re collecting is having a real impact.”
As of November 2014, LASP had 393 employees — 110 of them students. These 47 graduate and 63 undergraduate students are involved at every level, from controlling the four spacecraft and 15 instruments LASP already oversees from Boulder to creating an additional 12 instruments for seven upcoming space missions.
LASP is just one cog in the powerful CU aerospace machine. Boulder-campus programs received about $500 million of aerospace-related contracts and grants between fiscal years 2009 and 2014, including funding from NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Department of Defense, according to university records. CU’s Boulder campus also received an additional $435.97 million of National Science Foundation grants during the same period.
This influx of funds is central to a strong state economy, said Carol Hedges, executive director of the Colorado Fiscal Institute.
“It’s not just tuition and state spending,” Hedges said. “There’s a great deal of money that comes into our state from research grants that aren’t directly from the state budget that have a huge ripple effect on the economy and create good jobs.”
CU’s federal space funding resulted in a direct employment of 2,539 people and an estimated immediate economic impact of $556.3 million, according to a university analysis, which did not include the NSF funds.
When additional factors such as industry supply chain purchases and workers reinvesting their income into the economy are considered, the total estimated economic impact of this work skyrockets to $1.2 billion, according to the same analysis.
This investment ensures Boulder and Colorado remain at the epicenter of much of the nation’s space science.
Findings from MMS will be used alongside those from the National Solar Observatory, also in Boulder, and several other missions that study other aspects of the solar-Earth relationship — including DSCOVR and the Van Allen Probes — to help paint a fuller picture of how magnetic reconnection works within solar winds, Earth’s radiation belts and more.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say we’ve got our fingers in almost all aspects of this connected system,” Baker said. “This is a very large team of people. People from all over the world are going to be major players, but I’m delighted that we’re really heading the science operations. It’s a key portal to so much of the science information.”
Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or twitter.com/LauraKeeney
CU at Center of NASA Mission
In addition to its countless Earth missions, CU Boulder’s LASP has designed, built and
launched an instrument to every planet in the solar system. In total, LASP currently has 22 instruments in space on missions such as New Horizons.
Mercury: MESSENGER, 2004
Venus: Mariner 5, 1967; Pioneer Venus Orbiter, 1978
Mars: Mariner 6 & 7, 1969; Mariner 9, 1971; 2013
Jupiter: Voyager 1 & 2, 1977; Galileo, 1989
Saturn: Voyager 1 & 2, 1977; Cassini, 1997
Uranus: Voyager 2, 1977
Neptune: Voyager 2, 1977
*Pluto: New Horizons, 2006
*Pluto was reclassified as a “dwarf planet” in 2006
