Space scientists around the world are celebrating ten years of groundbreaking discoveries by Cluster, a mission that is illuminating the mysteries of the magnetosphere, the northern lights and the solar wind.
Cluster is a European Space Agency mission, launched in summer 2000. It consists of a unique constellation of four spacecraft flying in formation around the Earth, studying the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere.
UK scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) are responsible for co-ordinating the vital science operations for the mission, planning the complex operation of scientific instruments and relaying instructions to them. This critical task is carried out by the Cluster Joint Science Operations Centre (JSOC), located at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, Oxfordshire.
Cluster’s four satellites, Rumba, Samba, Salsa, and Tango, fly in formation around the Earth to provide a 3D picture of how the continuous ‘solar wind’ of plasma (charged particles) from the Sun affects our near-Earth space environment and its protective ‘magnetic bubble’, known as the magnetosphere. Cluster has revolutionised our understanding of the plasmasphere, the 20000km deep bubble of plasma that co-rotates with the Earth and that can have important effects on satellite navigation systems.
Many of the instruments for Cluster were built by UK institutions and the propulsion and attitude control systems for the spacecraft were built by UK industry.
