A research center of NASA. (Reuters)
The US space agency plans to launch an ambitious Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission in March next year to deploy four identical spacecraft from a single rocket to study magnetic reconnection in the universe.
NASA has released a demo video of the launch where a single rocket will carry all four MMS spacecraft, stacked on top of each other, to their destination from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
According to NASA, fresh insights offered by the MMS mission could aid in the creation of clean energy solutions such as fusion energy reactors.
The spacecraft are designed to break free from the stack once the rocket reaches orbit, NASA said in a statement.
Each of the four spacecraft has a compliment of 25 sensors comprising 11 instruments.
These spacecraft will cross through two known magnetic reconnection regions and gather data via super-fast scientific instruments.
Magnetic reconnection is a process that converts magnetic energy to kinetic or thermal energy.
It happens all over the universe and occurs during solar flares, coronal mass ejections and when solar winds interact with the Earth's magnetic field, causing aurorae.