07/22/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/22/2025 15:22
A moment eight years in the making is set to achieve lift off.
The planned launch date for NASA's TRACERS mission is Wednesday, July 23 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. A Falcon 9 rocket will carry two satellites loaded with instruments to study the Earth's magnetic interactions with the sun.
The UI Department of Physics and Astronomy will host a live viewing event of the launch from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Wednesday in lecture room 1 of Van Allen Hall. The TRACERS launch window opens at 1:13 p.m. (CT).
The Iowa-led mission is the largest externally funded project in the university's history, garnering $165.7 million.
Two TRACERS instruments were fully designed and built at Iowa. Three other instruments from UCLA; University of California, Berkeley; and the Southwest Research Institute were shipped to Iowa to undergo testing by the TRACERS team in Van Allen Hall.
The TRACERS mission received initial funding from NASA in October 2017 after UI space physicist Craig Kletzing proposed the idea for the project. Kletzing led the project until his death in August 2023. David Miles, associate professor in the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the mission's principal investigator.