THEMIS
Time History of Events of Macroscale Interactions During Substorms
Observing the processes that drive aurora
THEMIS is a constellation mission consisting of five satellites placed in highly elliptical orbits where the spacecraft line up at apogee every four days. While a ground-based array of magnetometers and auroral cameras located in North America monitor the space environment by watching the aurora (Northern Lights), the satellites will directly observe the processes that drive it. THEMIS answers fundamental questions regarding the magnetospheric substorm instability, a dominant mechanism of transport and explosive release of solar wind energy within geospace.
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Launch Date: February 17, 2007
Prime Mission: 2 years
Extended Mission: 2025
Lead Institution: University of California, Berkeley/Space Sciences Laboratory
Lead Funding Agency: NASA’s Heliophysics Division
Partners: University of California Los Angeles, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Swales Aerospace, University of Colorado Boulder