19 August

2000: On 19 August 2000, the second payload of the ESA's Cluster mission was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Cluster is a collection of four spacecraft flying in formation around the Earth, relaying the most detailed ever information about how the solar wind affects our planet in three dimensions. The solar wind (the perpetual stream of subatomic particles given out by the Sun) can damage communications satellites and power stations on the Earth.