ULA Atlas V MMS launches from the Cape

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket has launched NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission on Thursday. Launching from Cape Canaveral, the rocket will place the four-satellite constellation into a highly elliptical orbit, beginning a two-year mission to study reconnection in the magnetosphere. Launch occurred at the start of a thirty-minute window at 22:44 local time (02:44 UTC on Friday). The Magnetic Multiscale – or MMS – mission consists of four identical spacecraft which will be used to conduct plasma physics research in the environment of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The mission is intended to help scientists better understand a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection which has been observed in plasmas. More

(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Mar 13)