Over the duration of the mission the MMS spacecraft have obtained a significant amount data in the pristine solar wind. This includes a unique set of observations during the turbulence campaign…

This federal contract award, valued at $99,918.78, was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Colorado through its Office of Contracts and Grants. The award supports an in-depth analysis of data collected by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft during a turbulence campaign in the solar wind in February 2019. The research aims to investigate the nature of energy dissipation and the properties of intermittent structures where particle heating and acceleration occur at kinetic scales in solar wind turbulence. This contract was awarded without a set-aside designation and is structured as a grant for research. The University of Colorado, as the prime contractor, will leverage its expertise in space physics, climate science, and material science to conduct this fundamental research, which may have applications for understanding space weather and thermal management of electronics in extreme defense and space environments.

Over the duration of the mission the MMS spacecraft have obtained a significant amount data in the pristine solar wind. This includes a unique set of observations during the turbulence campaign carried out in february 2019. The colinear logspaced formation allowed US to directly investigate the structure of the turbulent plasma at kinetic in the solar wind in ways that have not been possible in the past. Preliminary investigations of these observations have shown that they can indeed offer novel insights into the physics of solar wind turbulence. We propose to carry out an in-depth analysis of these data, focusing on the nature of the energy dissipation in solar wind turbulence that occurs at kinetic scales. Specifically, we plan to investigate the properties of the intermittent structures at which such dissipation occurs, and their role as cites of particle heating and acceleration.