Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer from the University of Colorado. The sphere carried a particle spectrometer to measure the outer atmosphere wind speed and direction, and a drag measurement system. It was attached to an 8 kg Lightband adapter which was jettisoned on October 30 (cataloged as 2013-055AC) and DANDE then began its atmospheric density studies.

A follow-up to CHAMP spacecraft, the Swarm was three satellites in three different polar orbits to measure the earth's magnetic field with high precision. Each spacecraft carried an Absolute Scalar Magnetometer; a Vector Field Magnetometer; an Electric Field Instrument; an Accelerometer; and a Laser Range Reflector.

1.5U cubesat from the Montana Space Grant Consortium to study electron microbursts in the magnetosphere. The Centaur AV-042 upper stage, after deploying the main payload, made two orbit lowering burns to a 467 x 883 km x 120.5 deg orbit. Attached to AV-042 was GEMSAT, the second NPSCuL cubesat launcher, which ejected 12 cubesats between around 10:22 and 10:38 GMT.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory, DSCOVR, was launched after many years of gestation. Originally a NASA mission called Triana and centered around its Earth observation camera, it had at one point been scheduled for launch on the fatal STS-107 flight of Columbia, but was cancelled amid political controversy (it grew out of an idea by Vice-President Gore for whole-Earth imaging to raise eco-awareness) and placed in storage. The mission was reactivated as part of a NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) effort to monitor 'space weather', the flux of particles and radiation in the solar wind and its interaction with the Earth's outer atmosphere. DSCOVR 145 kg of hydrazine propellant, and was stationed at the Earth-Sun L1 point, 1.5 million km noonward from Earth. It carried a Faraday cup instrument to measure solar wind speed, an electron spectrometer and a magnetometer to measure local plasma and fields, a broad band (0.2 to 100 microns) radiometer to measure the Earth's total energy output, and the Earth Polychomatic Imaging Camera to return images of the full Earth disk. DSCOVR was launched into a 184 km x 186 km x 37 deg parking orbit; 30 minutes after launch the Falcon 9 second stage restarted to boost DSCOVR into a 187 km x 1,371,156 km x 37 deg transfer orbit. When the probe reached the L1 point it entered a Lissajous orbit, tracing out a complex pattern around the gravitationally stable balance point. Radius of this pattern was initially around 250,000 km.

NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission was launched on Mar 13. The mission consists of four identical spacecraft, each with a mass of 1000 kg plus 400 kg of propellant. The spacecraft will fly in a tetrahedral formation some tens of kilometres apart to disentangle spatial and temporal fluctuations in the magnetospheric particle and field environment. They will deploy wire booms with a span of 112 metres to measure electric fields. Additional Details: here....

The QUESS (Quantum Experiment Scientific Satellite, liangzi kexue shiyan weixing) was named 'Mozi hao' after the Chinese philosopher Mo Zi (470-390BC), who was credited with the first mention of a camera obscura. The Mozi satellite performed communications experiments using quantum entanglement; developed by the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites.

Second Epsilon rocket launched the 350 kg ERG geospace science satellite into elliptical orbit. ERG carried experiments to study energetic particles, waves and fields in the magnetosphere. After launch, ERG was renamed 'Arase' (rough water, a metaphor for the dynamic magnetic storms of geospace). The second Epsilon uses a new second stage, the M-35. The first flight in 2013 used a derivative of the M-34 from the old M-V rocket. The M-35, with a mass of 17200 kg, was a growth version sized to match the 2.6m diameter of the larger Epsilon first stage. The third stage was the KM-V2c, with minor improvements compared to the previous mission's KM-V2b. The PBS liquid post-boost 4th stage was not included on this flight.