NASA’s CINEMA Mission To Explore Earth’s Magnetotail And Aurora Advances To Next Phase

NASA propels a heliophysics mission forward, navigating the intricate realm of space weather. The agency announced the Cross-scale Investigation of Earth’s Magnetotail and Aurora, or CINEMA, mission will advance to Phase B development under its heliophysics Small Explorer program. This ambitious undertaking involves deploying nine small satellites, each equipped with three instruments, in polar low Earth orbits.

The CINEMA mission aims to scrutinize the magnetotail, an extension of Earth’s magnetosphere molded by the solar wind, which drives geomagnetic storms. According to Joe Westlake, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, “The CINEMA mission will help research magnetic convection in Earth’s magnetosphere — a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding why some space weather events are so influential.” The next phase, Phase B, will encompass detailed design work over the next 10 months, with an allocated budget of $28 million. NASA will then reassess the mission’s viability, with a total cost not to exceed $182. 8 million and a launch scheduled for no earlier than 2030. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab will manage the CINEMA mission, with Robyn Millan of Dartmouth College serving as principal investigator.