The MAGnetometers for Innovation and Capability (MAGIC) Technology Demonstration Payload

The MAGnetometers for Innovation and Capability (MAGIC) instruments on the Tandem Reconnection And Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) Small Explorers (SMEX) mission are a technology demonstration (NASA NPR7120.8A). MAGIC will flight-demonstrate new low-noise fluxgate magnetometer cores, used to modulate the local in-situ magnetic field so that it can be sensed using the fluxgate technique, that were built from scratch at the University of Iowa Department of Physics and Astronomy. These fluxgate cores are intended to replace the dwindling supply of legacy Infinetics S1000 cores used historically in many spaceflight magnetometer applications. Each TRACERS spacecraft carries a technology demonstration magnetometer mounted on a common bracket with the TRACERS science magnetometer allowing direct in-flight validation of the new fluxgate technology. One TRACERS spacecraft carries a sensor that uses a backwards compatible 1" ring-core suitable for use in current magnetometer designs. The other TRACERS spacecraft carries a new sensor design called the Tesseract that uses race-track geometry fluxgate cores.