After the successful launch of the first two Cluster satellites — Salsa and Samba — on 16 July, followed by a perfect insertion into their operational orbits, scientists around the world are eagerly awaiting the launch of the second Cluster pair from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Lift-off for the next duo, FM 5 (Rumba) and FM 8 (Tango), is currently scheduled for 13:13 CEST / 17:13 Baikonur time, on 9 August. Following their release from the Soyuz-Fregat launch vehicle provided by the French-Russian Starsem consortium, the satellites will participate in an almost identical series of complex orbital manoeuvres to their predecessors.
By 15 August, they should have joined their companions to form a unique space quartet. This mini-armada will spend the next two years exploring the interaction between the charged particles swept along in the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic shield — the magnetosphere.
By flying in tetrahedral formation through this magnetic bubble and into interplanetary space, the Cluster quartet will provide the most detailed data yet on the Sun-Earth connection and the physical processes taking place between 19,000 and 119,000 kilometres above our heads.
Cluster Instrument Sites
