Ten years flying in formation: The legendary Cluster quartet
Next week marks the 10th anniversary of the start of formation flying for the four satellites of ESA's Cluster quartet, one of the most successful scientific missions ever launched. On 1 September 2000, just a few weeks after launch, the four individual satellites of the Cluster mission began coordinated orbits, marking the formal start of formation flying. Since then, the four satellites -- dubbed Samba, Tango, Rumba and Salsa -- have gone on to collect some of the most detailed data ever on the physical properties of space between Earth and the Sun, and on the interactions between the charged particles of the solar wind and Earth's atmosphere. In all, over 2.6 terabytes of data -- enough to fill 3300 CDROMS -- have been delivered from space.