NASA’s EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:43 p.m. PDT on March 14 (2:43 a.m. EDT on March 15).
The mission is being carried to orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission with SpaceX via launch integrator Maverick Space Systems.
In the next few hours, SpaceX will confirm that the mission’s three spacecraft were successfully deployed from the rocket.
Once in orbit, EZIE’s trio of CubeSats will fly in formation around Earth’s poles to study auroral electrojets, intense electrical currents that flow through our upper atmosphere where auroras glow in the sky. By mapping the electrojets, EZIE will help scientists better predict geomagnetic storms and other space weather phenomena that can affect our technological society.
The EZIE mission is funded by the Heliophysics Division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, leads the mission for NASA. Blue Canyon Technologies in Boulder, Colorado, built the CubeSats, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built the Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram, which will map the electrojets, for each of the three satellites.
Visit NASA’s EZIE website for more information about the mission. Follow NASA’s EZIE blog for the latest updates.