NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launches at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission stands vertical Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster lands on Landing Zone 4 following liftoff of NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission at Space Launch Complex  4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. This was the 16th flight for the first stage booster, which has previously launched these NASA missions - PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7, and Commercial Resupply Services-29. The TRACERS mission will study magnetic reconnection around Earth — a process in which electrically charged plasmas exchange energy in the atmosphere — to understand how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic shield.

Technicians encapsulate the black twin satellites of NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission within a payload fairing atop a shiny metallic stack of several other rideshare payloads at the Astrotech Space Operations facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The TRACERS mission is a pair of twin satellites that will study how Earth’s magnetic shield — the magnetosphere — protects our planet from the supersonic stream of material from the Sun called solar wind.