MMS
Full Name: Magnetospheric MultiScale
Phase: Development
Launch Date: August 14, 2014
Mission Project Home Page: http://mms.space.swri.edu/
Program(s): Solar Terrestrial Probes
Mission Education & Public Outreach (E/PO) Page
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar-Terrestrial Probe mission comprising four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth's magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence. These processes occur in all astrophysical plasma systems but can be studied in situ only in our solar system and most efficiently only in Earth's magnetosphere, where they control the dynamics of the geospace environment and play an important role in the processes known as "space weather."
On May 3, 2005, NASA selected the Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Instrument Suite team led by Dr. James L. Burch of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), San Antonio, TX, to work with the MMS Project in the mission formulation phase. Mission formulation activities will include refined mission definition, spacecraft accommodation studies and detailed planning necessary for developing the mission. The Project will prepare for an Initial Confirmation Review in the first quarter of 2006 where a determination will be made that the Project is ready to proceed to the Preliminary Design Phase.
The MMS Project is currently planning for a launch in 2014.