NASA's MMS spacecraft achieve tightest flying formation ever

On Oct. 15, 2015, a NASA mission broke its own record: the four satellites of its Magnetospheric Multiscale mission are now flying at their smallest separation, the tightest multi-spacecraft formation ever flown in orbit. The four spacecraft are just six miles apart, flying in what's called a tetrahedral formation, with each spacecraft at the tip of a four-sided pyramid. The close formation is all the more impressive as the spacecraft speed along at up to 15,000 miles per hour and – with t