Iowa researchers celebrate TRACERS launch
On July 23, 2025, at 11:13 a.m. PDT, a Falcon 9 rocket shot upward from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and the University of Iowa notched a significant milestone in space physics.
The rocket carried two satellites, each equipped with five instruments exhaustively tested by Iowa scientists, for TRACERS, the $171.6 million NASA-funded mission to study the mysterious, powerful interactions between the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth.
The mission, conceived nearly nine years ago by Iowa physics professor Craig Kletzing (who died in 2023 at age 65), will study how Earth’s magnetic shield — the magnetosphere — protects our planet from the supersonic stream of material from the sun called solar wind. As the satellites fly pole to pole in a sun-synchronous orbit, they will measure how magnetic explosions send these solar wind particles zooming down into Earth’s atmosphere — and how these explosions shape the space weather that impacts our satellites, technology, and astronauts.
Dozens of scientists from Iowa — many joined by their spouses and families — journeyed to Lompoc, the town closest to Vandenberg, host to the SpaceX-operated launch pad abutting the Pacific Ocean. On launch day, some gathered in a small field in downtown Lompoc to joyfully witness the launch, which was delayed by a day. Others ventured to a hill outside the city limits, adorned with TRACERS hats and T-shirts and cheering giddily as they watched the rocket rise against a backdrop of scrub grass hills and the ocean.
