Cluster Archive
Measuring Earth's magnetic environment
The mission
Cluster is a constellation of four spacecraft investigating the interaction between the Sun and Earth’s magnetosphere in unparalleled detail. The magnetosphere is our shield against the charged gas that carries particles and magnetic fields outwards from the Sun.
- Launch: 16 July and 9 August 2000
- Observes: solar wind, magnetosphere
- Orbit: elliptical around Earth’s poles, a few hundred to 125 000 km altitude
- Spacecraft names: Rumba, Salsa, Samba and Tango
- 11 instruments
- 4 spacecraft
- 2 decades of operation
