NASA launches EZIE mission to study Earth's electrojets

NASA has launched its EZIE mission to study electrical currents in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, known as electrojets. This project uses technology developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is designed to improve understanding of space weather. The project manager, Nelli Mosavi-Hoyer, expressed excitement about the spacecraft collecting important data. She praised her team for their hard work and dedication. Mosavi-Hoyer believes this mission will provide valuable insights into how electrojets form and change. Unlike other missions that have looked at electrojets in broad or narrow scopes, EZIE aims to explore these currents in detail. NASA scientist Larry Kepko noted that this mission allows researchers to investigate the currents at scales that have not been studied before. In addition, the mission team is providing magnetometer kits called EZIE-Mag for educators and hobbyists. These kits will help individuals take their own measurements, which will be combined with data from the spacecraft to give a fuller picture of Earth's electrical current system. The EZIE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA Goddard. It is led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The CubeSats were built by Blue Canyon Technologies, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created the instruments for mapping the electrojets. For updates on the mission, you can visit NASA’s EZIE blog.