MMS-SMART: Quick Facts

• Objective: Discover the fundamental physics of magnetic reconnection using Earth's magnetosphere as a laboratory

• Implementation: 4 identically instrumented spin-stabilized spacecraft launched on a single expendable launch vehicle and configured in a tetrahedral formation to probe dayside and nightside reconnection regions

• Launch: March 2015

• Duration: Two years (Prime Mission) + 6 months (launch, checkout, commissioning)

• Orbit: 1.2 Earth radii by 12 Earth radii (day side); 1.2 Earth radii by 25 Earth radii (night side)

• Instrument Suite: Fast Plasma Instrument; FIELDS; Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer; Energetic Particles; Active Spacecraft Potential Control; Central Instrument Data Processor

• Team: Southwest Research Institute (Science Team Lead, Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer, Central Instrument Data Processor); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Fast Plasma Instrument, Theory & Modeling, spacecraft development, mission operations); University of New Hampshire (FIELDS); the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Energetic Particles); University of Colorado (MMS Science Operations Center); Austrian Academy of Sciences (Active Spacecraft Potential Control); Rice University (Education & Public Outreach)