NASA has chosen SpaceX to launch a pair of small satellites in 2025 as part of a rideshare mission dedicated to studying space weather.

On September 29, NASA revealed that it had awarded SpaceX a task order for launching the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS), two small satellites designed to investigate space weather and the Earth’s magnetosphere from low Earth orbit.

NASA originally selected TRACERS as a heliophysics Small Explorer (SMEX) mission in 2019, with a budget capped at $115 million, Space News reported.

Initially, the plan was for TRACERS to be launched as a secondary payload alongside another SMEX mission, the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH).

However, in August 2022, NASA announced that PUNCH would share a Falcon 9 launch with the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) as part of an agency astrophysics mission, scheduled for 2025.

While the NASA statement did not specify the launch details for TRACERS beyond its Falcon 9 ride, it was confirmed that TRACERS will serve as the primary payload for a rideshare mission to sun-synchronous orbit, expected to launch no earlier than April 2025.

Written by staff