Rumba, Tango, Sanba and Salsa

2001/02/05 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astronautika

They have the name of the Caribbean dances, but they are four satellites exactly the same. It is about two years turning around the Earth and studying the magnetosphere, a region protected by the Earth's magnetic field. The four satellites were put into orbit last July and August and work synchronized. The charged particles emitted by the sun and the regions in which the magnetosphere shock occurs, specifically the plasma microstructures of these regions, will be analyzed.

The satellites will simultaneously collect measurements and data on the same phenomenon, which will allow for the first time to perform a three-dimensional analysis of the changes and processes that occur in the space near the Earth. Its orbits are polar and very eccentric and are adjusted so that they are at the vertices of a tetrahedron every time it crosses an interesting region of the magnetosphere.

Rumba, Tango, Sanba and Salsa have been in space for a few months, but on Friday they were given the formal order to start working. Physicists around the world await the information received by them. To see what it gives.