Mission and launch managers for NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) were not put off by the “unlucky” launch date as they watched an Atlas V 421 successfully launch the mission’s four MMS satellites at 0244 GMT on Friday 13 March 2015 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA.
The four identical 1250kg satellites were placed in a highly elliptical orbit and will fly in a tetrahedral formation in order to study the Earth’s magnetosphere and reconnection phenomena.
David Todd contributed to this report.