WIND
Encyclopedia
The Global Geospace Science (GGS) WIND satellite
is a NASA
science spacecraft
launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
(CCAFS) in Merritt Island, Florida
aboard a McDonnell Douglas
Delta II
7925-10 rocket. WIND was designed and manufactured by Martin Marietta
Astro Space Division in East Windsor
, New Jersey
. The satellite is a spin stabilized
cylindrical
satellite with a diameter of 2.4 m
and a height of 1.8 m.
It was deployed to study radio and plasma that occur in the solar wind
and in the Earth's magnetosphere
before the solar wind reaches the Earth. The spacecraft's original mission was to orbit the Sun at the Lagrangian point, but this was delayed when the SOHO
and ACE
spacecraft were sent to the same location. WIND has been at continuously since 2004, and is still operating as of November 2011 . WIND currently has enough fuel to last roughly 60 years at L1. WIND continues to produce relevant research as its data has contributed to over 500 publications since 2008 and over 1900 publications prior to 2008. As of November 2011, the total number of publications either directly or indirectly using WIND data is ~2458 .
Mission operations are conducted from the WIND/POLAR Mission Operations Room (MOR) in Building 3 at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
WIND is the sister ship to GGS Polar
.
environment in order to predict how the Earth
's atmosphere will respond to changes in solar wind
conditions. WIND's objective is to measure the properties of the solar wind
before it reaches the Earth. The WIND spacecraft has an array of instruments including: Konus , the Wind Magnetic Field Investigation (MFI) , the Solar Wind and Suprathermal Ion Composition Experiment (SMS) , The Energetic Particles: Acceleration, Composition, and Transport (EPACT) investigation , the Solar Wind Experiment (SWE) , a Three-Dimensional Plasma and Energetic Particle Investigation (3DP) , the Transient Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (TGRS) , and the Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation (WAVES) . The Konus and TGRS instruments are primarily for gamma-ray and high energy photon
observations of solar flares or gamma-ray bursts. The SMS experiment measures the mass and mass-to-charge ratios of heavy ions. The SWE and 3DP experiments are meant to measure/analyze the lower energy (below 10 MeV) solar wind protons and electrons. The WAVES and MFI experiments were designed to measure the electric and magnetic fields observed in the solar wind. All together, the WIND spacecraft's suite of instruments allows for a complete description of plasma phenomena in the solar wind plane of the ecliptic.
detectors of the WIND WAVES instrument are composed of three orthogonal electric field dipole antenna
s, two in the spin plane (roughly the plane of the ecliptic
) of the spacecraft and one along the spin axis. The complete WAVES suite of instruments includes five total receivers including: Low Frequency FFT receiver called FFT (0.3 Hz to 11 kHz), Thermal Noise Receiver called TNR (4-256 kHz), Radio receiver band 1 called RAD1 (20-1040 kHz), Radio receiver band 2 called RAD2 (1.075-13.825 MHz), and the Time Domain Sampler called TDS ((designed and built by the University of Minnesota
). The longer of the two spin plane antenna
, defined as Ex, is 100 m tip-to-tip while the shorter, defined as Ey, is 15 m tip-to-tip. The spin axis dipole, defined as Ez, is roughly 12 m tip-to-tip. When accounting for spacecraft potential, these antenna lengths are adjusted to ~41.1 m, ~3.79 m, and ~2.17 m [Note: these are subject to change and only estimates]. The WIND WAVES instrument also detects magnetic field
s using three orthogonal search coil magnetometers (designed and built by the University of Iowa
). The XY search coils are oriented to be parallel to the XY dipole antenna. The search coils allow for high-frequency magnetic field measurements (defined as Bx, By, and Bz). The WAVES Z-Axis is anti-parallel to Z-GSE (Geocentric Solar Ecliptic) direction. Thus any rotations can be done about the Z-Axis in the normal Eulerian sense followed by a change of sign in the Z-component of any GSE
vector rotated into WAVES coordinates.
Electric (and magnetic) field waveform captures can be obtained from the Time Domain Sampler (TDS) receiver . TDS samples are a waveform capture of 2048 points (16384 points on the STEREO
spacecraft) per field component. The waveforms are measures of electric field versus time. In the highest sampling rates, the Fast (TDSF) sampler runs at ~120,000 samples per second (sps) and the Slow (TDSS) sampler runs at ~7,500 sps. TDSF samples are composed of two electric field components (typically Ex and Ey) while TDSS samples are composed of four vectors, either three electric and one magnetic field or three magnetic and one electric field. The TDSF receiver has little to no gain below about ~120 Hz and the search coil magnetometers roll off around ~3.3 Hz .
, λDe . For typical conditions in the solar wind λDe ~ 7-20 m, much shorter than the wire dipole antenna on WIND. The majority of this section was taken from .
) was designed to make full three-dimensional measurements of the distributions of suprathermal electrons and ions in the solar wind. The instrument includes three arrays, each consisting of a pair of double-ended semi-conductor telescopes each with two or three closely sandwiched passivated ion implanted silicon
detectors, which measure electrons and ions above ~20 keV. The instrument also has top-hat symmetrical spherical section electrostatic (ES) analyzers with microchannel plate detectors (MCPs) are used to measure ions and electrons from ~3 eV to 30 keV . The two types of detectors have energy resolutions ranging from ΔE/E ≈ 0.3 for the solid state telescopes (SST) and ΔE/E ≈ 0.2 for the top-hat ES analyzers. The angular resolutions are 22.5o x 36o for the SST and 5.6o (near the ecliptic) to 22.5o for the top-hat ES analyzers. The particle detectors can obtain a full 4π steradian coverage in one full(half) spin (~3 s) for the SST (top-hat ES analyzers). The majority of this section was taken from .
layout provides a 5.6o angular resolution within ±22.5o of the ecliptic plane (increases to 22.5o at normal incidence to ecliptic plane). The analyzers are swept logarithmically in energy and counters sample at 1024 samples/spin (~3 ms sample period). Thus the analyzers can be set to sample 64 energy samples per sweep at 16 sweeps per spin or 32 energy samples per sweep at 32 sweeps per spin,etc. The detectors are defined as follows:
The majority of this section was taken from .
foil, ~1500 Å of aluminum evaporated on each side to completely eliminate sunlight
, (SST-Foil) where the thickness was chosen to stop protons up to the energy of electrons (~400 keV). Electrons are essentially unaffected by the foil. On the opposite side (SST-Open), a common broom magnet is used to refuse electrons below ~400 keV from entering but leaves the ions essentially unaffected. Thus, if no higher energy particles penetrate the detector walls, the SST-Foil should only measure electrons and the SST-Open only ions. Each double-ended telescope has two 36o x 20o FWHM FOV, thus each end of the five telescopes can cover a 180o x 20o piece of space. Telescope 6 views the same angle to spin axis as telescope 2, but both ends of telescope 2 have a drilled tantalum cover to reduce the geometric factor by a factor of 10 to measure the most intense fluxes. The SST-Foil data structures typically have 7 energy bins each with 48 data points while the SST-Open has 9 energy bins each with 48 data points. Both detectors have energy resolutions of ΔE/E ≈ 30%. The majority of this section was taken from .
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
is a NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
science spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Command's 45th Space Wing, headquartered at nearby Patrick Air Force Base. Located on Cape Canaveral in the state of Florida, CCAFS is the primary launch head of America's Eastern Range with four launch pads...
(CCAFS) in Merritt Island, Florida
Merritt Island, Florida
Merritt Island is a census-designated place in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located on the east coast of the state on the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2000 census, the population was 36,090. It is part of the Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area...
aboard a McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It formed from a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967. McDonnell Douglas was based at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport...
Delta II
Delta II
Delta II was an American space launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and was in service from 1989 until November 1, 2011...
7925-10 rocket. WIND was designed and manufactured by Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of The Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. The combined company became a leader in chemicals, aerospace, and electronics. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. The...
Astro Space Division in East Windsor
East Windsor Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 24,919 people, 9,448 households, and 6,556 families residing in the township. The population density was 1,592.8 people per square mile . There were 9,880 housing units at an average density of 631.5 per square mile...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. The satellite is a spin stabilized
Spin-stabilized satellite
A spin-stabilized satellite is a satellite which has the motion of one axis held fixed by spinning the satellite around that axis, using the gyroscopic effect.The attitude of a satellite or any rigid body is its orientation in space...
cylindrical
Cylinder (geometry)
A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...
satellite with a diameter of 2.4 m
Metre
The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...
and a height of 1.8 m.
It was deployed to study radio and plasma that occur in the solar wind
Solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...
and in the Earth's magnetosphere
Magnetosphere
A magnetosphere is formed when a stream of charged particles, such as the solar wind, interacts with and is deflected by the intrinsic magnetic field of a planet or similar body. Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, as are the other planets with intrinsic magnetic fields: Mercury, Jupiter,...
before the solar wind reaches the Earth. The spacecraft's original mission was to orbit the Sun at the Lagrangian point, but this was delayed when the SOHO
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is a spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and has discovered over 2100 comets. It began normal operations in May...
and ACE
Advanced Composition Explorer
Advanced Composition Explorer is a NASA space exploration mission being conducted as part of the Explorer program to study matter in situ, comprising energetic particles from the solar wind, the interplanetary medium, and other sources. Real-time data from ACE is used by the Space Weather...
spacecraft were sent to the same location. WIND has been at continuously since 2004, and is still operating as of November 2011 . WIND currently has enough fuel to last roughly 60 years at L1. WIND continues to produce relevant research as its data has contributed to over 500 publications since 2008 and over 1900 publications prior to 2008. As of November 2011, the total number of publications either directly or indirectly using WIND data is ~2458 .
Mission operations are conducted from the WIND/POLAR Mission Operations Room (MOR) in Building 3 at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
WIND is the sister ship to GGS Polar
Polar (satellite)
The Global Geospace Science Polar Satellite was a BABATONDIE science spacecraft launched at 06:23:59.997 EST on February 24, 1996 aboard a BABATONDIE BABATONDIE 7925-10 rocket from launch pad 2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base in BABATONDIE, BABATONDIE, to observe the polar BABATONDIE...
.
The science objectives of the WIND mission
- Provide complete plasma, energetic particle, and magnetic field input for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies.
- Determine the magnetospheric output to interplanetary space in the up-stream region.
- Investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind.
- Provide baseline ecliptic plane observations to be used in heliospheric latitudes from ULYSSES.
The science instruments on the WIND spacecraft
The aim of ISTP is to understand the behavior of the solar-terrestrial plasmaPlasma
Plasma may refer to:* Blood plasma, the yellow-colored liquid component of blood, in which blood cells are suspended* Plasma , an ionized state of matter similar to a gas...
environment in order to predict how the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's atmosphere will respond to changes in solar wind
Solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...
conditions. WIND's objective is to measure the properties of the solar wind
Solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...
before it reaches the Earth. The WIND spacecraft has an array of instruments including: Konus , the Wind Magnetic Field Investigation (MFI) , the Solar Wind and Suprathermal Ion Composition Experiment (SMS) , The Energetic Particles: Acceleration, Composition, and Transport (EPACT) investigation , the Solar Wind Experiment (SWE) , a Three-Dimensional Plasma and Energetic Particle Investigation (3DP) , the Transient Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (TGRS) , and the Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation (WAVES) . The Konus and TGRS instruments are primarily for gamma-ray and high energy photon
Photon
In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is also the force carrier for the electromagnetic force...
observations of solar flares or gamma-ray bursts. The SMS experiment measures the mass and mass-to-charge ratios of heavy ions. The SWE and 3DP experiments are meant to measure/analyze the lower energy (below 10 MeV) solar wind protons and electrons. The WAVES and MFI experiments were designed to measure the electric and magnetic fields observed in the solar wind. All together, the WIND spacecraft's suite of instruments allows for a complete description of plasma phenomena in the solar wind plane of the ecliptic.
Time domain sampler
The electric fieldElectric field
In physics, an electric field surrounds electrically charged particles and time-varying magnetic fields. The electric field depicts the force exerted on other electrically charged objects by the electrically charged particle the field is surrounding...
detectors of the WIND WAVES instrument are composed of three orthogonal electric field dipole antenna
Dipole antenna
A dipole antenna is a radio antenna that can be made of a simple wire, with a center-fed driven element. It consists of two metal conductors of rod or wire, oriented parallel and collinear with each other , with a small space between them. The radio frequency voltage is applied to the antenna at...
s, two in the spin plane (roughly the plane of the ecliptic
Ecliptic
The ecliptic is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. In more accurate terms, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the ecliptic plane, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun...
) of the spacecraft and one along the spin axis. The complete WAVES suite of instruments includes five total receivers including: Low Frequency FFT receiver called FFT (0.3 Hz to 11 kHz), Thermal Noise Receiver called TNR (4-256 kHz), Radio receiver band 1 called RAD1 (20-1040 kHz), Radio receiver band 2 called RAD2 (1.075-13.825 MHz), and the Time Domain Sampler called TDS ((designed and built by the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
). The longer of the two spin plane antenna
Antenna
Antenna may refer to:-Science and engineering:* Antenna , also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic Antenna (pl. antennas in radio/TV, antennae in biology) may refer to:-Science and engineering:* Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer...
, defined as Ex, is 100 m tip-to-tip while the shorter, defined as Ey, is 15 m tip-to-tip. The spin axis dipole, defined as Ez, is roughly 12 m tip-to-tip. When accounting for spacecraft potential, these antenna lengths are adjusted to ~41.1 m, ~3.79 m, and ~2.17 m [Note: these are subject to change and only estimates]. The WIND WAVES instrument also detects magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
s using three orthogonal search coil magnetometers (designed and built by the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
). The XY search coils are oriented to be parallel to the XY dipole antenna. The search coils allow for high-frequency magnetic field measurements (defined as Bx, By, and Bz). The WAVES Z-Axis is anti-parallel to Z-GSE (Geocentric Solar Ecliptic) direction. Thus any rotations can be done about the Z-Axis in the normal Eulerian sense followed by a change of sign in the Z-component of any GSE
GSE
GSE may refer to:*Generic Stream Encapsulation, a link layer protocol for the Internet Protocol *Barcelona Graduate School of Economics *Guwahati Stock Exchange in Assam*GIAC Security Expert...
vector rotated into WAVES coordinates.
Electric (and magnetic) field waveform captures can be obtained from the Time Domain Sampler (TDS) receiver . TDS samples are a waveform capture of 2048 points (16384 points on the STEREO
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
spacecraft) per field component. The waveforms are measures of electric field versus time. In the highest sampling rates, the Fast (TDSF) sampler runs at ~120,000 samples per second (sps) and the Slow (TDSS) sampler runs at ~7,500 sps. TDSF samples are composed of two electric field components (typically Ex and Ey) while TDSS samples are composed of four vectors, either three electric and one magnetic field or three magnetic and one electric field. The TDSF receiver has little to no gain below about ~120 Hz and the search coil magnetometers roll off around ~3.3 Hz .
Thermal Noise Receiver
The TNR measures ~4-256 kHz electric fields in up to 5 logarithmically spaced frequency bands, though typically only set at 3 bands, from 32 or 16 channels per band, with a 7 nV/(Hz)1/2 sensitivity, 400 Hz to 6.4 kHz bandwidth, and total dynamic range in excess of 100 dB . The data are taken by two multi-channel receivers which nominally sample for 20 ms at a 1 MHz sampling rate (see for more information). The TNR is often used to determine the local plasma density by observing the plasma line, an emission at the local plasma frequency due to a thermal noise response of the wire dipole antenna. One should note that observation of the plasma line requires the dipole antenna to be longer than the local Debye lengthDebye length
In plasma physics, the Debye length , named after the Dutch physicist and physical chemist Peter Debye, is the scale over which mobile charge carriers screen out electric fields in plasmas and other conductors. In other words, the Debye length is the distance over which significant charge...
, λDe . For typical conditions in the solar wind λDe ~ 7-20 m, much shorter than the wire dipole antenna on WIND. The majority of this section was taken from .
WIND/3DP
The WIND/3DP instrument ((designed and built at the Berkeley Space Sciences LaboratorySpace Sciences Laboratory
The Space Sciences Laboratory is an Organized Research Unit of the University of California, Berkeley. It is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus...
) was designed to make full three-dimensional measurements of the distributions of suprathermal electrons and ions in the solar wind. The instrument includes three arrays, each consisting of a pair of double-ended semi-conductor telescopes each with two or three closely sandwiched passivated ion implanted silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
detectors, which measure electrons and ions above ~20 keV. The instrument also has top-hat symmetrical spherical section electrostatic (ES) analyzers with microchannel plate detectors (MCPs) are used to measure ions and electrons from ~3 eV to 30 keV . The two types of detectors have energy resolutions ranging from ΔE/E ≈ 0.3 for the solid state telescopes (SST) and ΔE/E ≈ 0.2 for the top-hat ES analyzers. The angular resolutions are 22.5o x 36o for the SST and 5.6o (near the ecliptic) to 22.5o for the top-hat ES analyzers. The particle detectors can obtain a full 4π steradian coverage in one full(half) spin (~3 s) for the SST (top-hat ES analyzers). The majority of this section was taken from .
Electrostatic analyzers
The arrays of detectors are mounted on two opposing booms, each 0.5 m in length. The top-hat ES analyzers are composed of four separate detectors, each with different geometry factors to cover different ranges of energies. The electron detectors, EESA, and ion detectors, PESA, are each separated into low (L) and high (H) energy detectors. The H and L analyzers contain 24 and 16 discrete anodes, respectively. The anodeAnode
An anode is an electrode through which electric current flows into a polarized electrical device. Mnemonic: ACID ....
layout provides a 5.6o angular resolution within ±22.5o of the ecliptic plane (increases to 22.5o at normal incidence to ecliptic plane). The analyzers are swept logarithmically in energy and counters sample at 1024 samples/spin (~3 ms sample period). Thus the analyzers can be set to sample 64 energy samples per sweep at 16 sweeps per spin or 32 energy samples per sweep at 32 sweeps per spin,etc. The detectors are defined as follows:
- EESA Low (EL): covers electrons from ~3 eV to ~1 keV (These values vary from moment structure to moment structure depending on duration of data sampling, spacecraft potential, and whether in burst or survey mode. The typical range is ~5 eV to ~1.11 keV .) with a 11.25o spin phase resolution. EL has a total geometric factor of 1.3 x 10-2 E cm2-sr (where E is energy in eV) with a nearly identical 180o field of view (FOV), radial to the spacecraft, to that of PESA-L.
- EESA High (EH): covers electrons from ~200 eV to ~30 keV (though typical values vary from a minimum of ~137 eV to a maximum of ~28 keV) in a 32 sample energy sweep each 11.25o of spacecraft spin. EH has a total geometric factor of 2.0 x 10-1 E cm2-sr, MCP efficiency of about 70% and grid transmission of about 73%. EH has a 360o planar FOV tangent to the spacecraft surface which can be electrostatically deflected into a cone up to ±45o out of its normal plane.
- PESA Low (PL): covers ions with a 14 sample energy sweep (Note that in survey mode the data structures typically take 25 data points at 14 different energies while in burst mode they take 64 data points at 14 different energies.) from ~100 eV to ~10 keV (often energies range from ~700 eV to ~6 keV) each 5.6o of spacecraft spin. PL has a total geometric factor of only 1.6 x 10-4 E cm2-sr but an identical energy-angle response to that of PESA-H. While in the solar wind, PL reorients itself along the bulk flow direction to capture the solar wind flow which results in a narrow range of pitch-angle coverage.
- PESA High (PH): covers ions with a 15 sample energy sweep from as low as ~80 eV to as high as ~30 keV (typical energy range is ~500 eV to ~28 keV ) each 11.25o of spacecraft spin (Note that PH has multiple data modes where the number of data points per energy bin can be any of the following: 121, 97, 88, 65, or 56.). PH has a total geometric factor of 1.5 x 10-2 E cm2-sr with a MCP efficiency of about 50% and grid entrance post transmission of about 75%.
The majority of this section was taken from .
Solid-state telescopes
The SST detectors consist of three arrays of double-ended telescopes, each of which is composed of either a pair or triplet of closely sandwiched semi-conductor detectors. The center detector (Thick or T) of the triplet is 1.5 cm2 in area, 500 μm thick, while the other detectors, foil (F) and open (O), are the same area but only 300 μm thick. One direction of the telescopes is covered in a thin lexanLexan
Lexan is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative Plastics' brand of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic. Polycarbonate polymer is produced by reacting bisphenol A with carbonyl dichloride, also known as phosgene. Lexan is the brand name for polycarbonate sheet and resin in a wide range of grades...
foil, ~1500 Å of aluminum evaporated on each side to completely eliminate sunlight
Sunlight
Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere, and solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon.When the direct solar radiation is not blocked...
, (SST-Foil) where the thickness was chosen to stop protons up to the energy of electrons (~400 keV). Electrons are essentially unaffected by the foil. On the opposite side (SST-Open), a common broom magnet is used to refuse electrons below ~400 keV from entering but leaves the ions essentially unaffected. Thus, if no higher energy particles penetrate the detector walls, the SST-Foil should only measure electrons and the SST-Open only ions. Each double-ended telescope has two 36o x 20o FWHM FOV, thus each end of the five telescopes can cover a 180o x 20o piece of space. Telescope 6 views the same angle to spin axis as telescope 2, but both ends of telescope 2 have a drilled tantalum cover to reduce the geometric factor by a factor of 10 to measure the most intense fluxes. The SST-Foil data structures typically have 7 energy bins each with 48 data points while the SST-Open has 9 energy bins each with 48 data points. Both detectors have energy resolutions of ΔE/E ≈ 30%. The majority of this section was taken from .
WIND/MFI
The magnetic field instrument (MFI) on board WIND is composed of dual triaxial fluxgate magnetometers. The MFI has a dynamic range of ±4 nT to ±65,536 nT, digital resolution ranging from ±0.001 nT to ±16 nT, sensor noise level of < 0.006 nT (R.M.S.) for 0-10 Hz signals, and sample rates varying from 44 samples per second (sps) in snapshot memory to 10.87 sps in standard mode. The data are also available in averages at 3 seconds, 1 minute, and 1 hour. The data sampled at higher rates (i.e. >10 sps) is referred to as High Time Resolution (HTR) data in some studies .WIND/SWE
The WIND spacecraft has two Faraday Cup (FC) ion instruments . The SWE FCs can produce reduced ion distribution functions with up to 20 angular and 30 energy per charge bins every 92 seconds . Each sensor has a ~15o tilt above or below the spin plane and an energy range from ~150 eV to ~8 keV. A circular aperture limits the effects of aberration near the modulator grid and defines the collecting area of the collector plates in each FC. The FCs sample at a set energy for each spacecraft rotation, then step up the energy for the next rotation. Since there are up to 30 energy bins for these detectors, a full reduced distribution function requires 30 rotations or slightly more than 90 seconds.Some discoveries and/or contributions to science by the WIND spacecraft
- Observation of relationship between large-scale solar wind-magnetosphere interactions and magnetic reconnection at the terrestrial magnetopause .
- First statistical study of high frequency (≥1 kHz) electric field fluctuations in the ramp of interplanetary (IP) shocks . The study found that the amplitude of ion acoustic waves (IAWs) increased with increasing fast mode MachMachMach may refer to:* Mach , a lunar crater* Mach disk, diamond pattern seen in rocket exhaust* Mach number, a measure of speed* Gillette Mach3, a manual razor with three blades* Mach bands, an optical illusion...
number and shockShockCirculatory shock, commonly known simply as shock, is a life-threatening medical condition that occurs due to inadequate substrate for aerobic cellular respiration...
compression ratio. They also found that the IAWs had the highest probability of occurrence in the ramp region. - Observation of the largest whistler wave using a search coil magnetometer in the radiation belts .
- First observation of shocklets upstream of a quasi-perpendicular IP shock .
- First simultaneous observations of whistlerWhistler (radio)A whistler is a very low frequency electromagnetic wave which can be generated, for example, by lightning. Frequencies of terrestrial whistlers are 1 to 30 kHz, with maximum usually at 3 to 5 kHz. Although they are electromagnetic waves, they occur at audio frequencies, and can be...
mode waves with electron distributions unstable to the whistler heat fluxHeat fluxHeat flux or thermal flux is the rate of heat energy transfer through a given surface. The SI derived unit of heat rate is joule per second, or watt. Heat flux is the heat rate per unit area. In SI units, heat flux is measured in W/m2]. Heat rate is a scalar quantity, while heat flux is a vectorial...
instability . - First observation of a solitary waveSolitary waveIn mathematics and physics, a solitary wave can refer to* The solitary wave or wave of translation, as observed by John Scott Russell in the Union Canal, near Edinburgh in 1834...
at an IP shock with an amplitude exceeding 100 mV/m . - First observation of electron-Berstein-like waves at an IP shock .
- First observation of the source region of an IP Type II radio burst .
- First evidence for LangmuirLangmuirLangmuir may refer to:* Langmuir , an impact crater on the Moon's far side* Langmuir , an academic journal on colloids, surfaces and interfaces, published by the American Chemical Society...
wave coupling to Z-mode waves . - First evidence to suggest that the observed bi-polar ES structures in the shock transition region are consistent with BGKBGK-Science:* Apteronotus albifrons, a fish known as the black ghost knifefish, commonly abbreviated to BGK in aquarium literature.* Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook is a scheme used in Lattice Boltzmann methods....
modes or electron phase spacePhase spaceIn mathematics and physics, a phase space, introduced by Willard Gibbs in 1901, is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state of the system corresponding to one unique point in the phase space...
holes . - First evidence of a correlation between the amplitude of electron phase space holes and the change in electron temperature .
- First evidence of three-wave interactions in the terrestrial foreshockForeshockA foreshock is an earthquake that occurs before a larger seismic event and is related to it in both time and space. The designation of an earthquake as foreshock, mainshock or aftershock is only possible after the event....
using bi-coherence . - First evidence of proton temperature anisotropy constraints due to mirror, firehose, and ion cyclotron instabilities .
- First evidence of Alfvén-cyclotron dissipation .
- First (shared with STEREOSTEREOSTEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
spacecraft) observation of electron trapping by a very large amplitude whistler wave in the radiation belts (also seen in STEREO observations ). - First observation of Langmuir and whistler waves in the lunarLunarLunar may refer to:*Relating to the Moon*Lunar , a series of console video games*Lunar distance *Lunar calendar...
wake .
List of refereed publications for WIND
Other names
- GGS/Wind
- ISTP/Wind
- Wind/GGS
- Wind/ISTP
- Interplanetary Physics Laboratory (IPL)
- NORAD Satellite Catalog NumberSatellite Catalog NumberThe Satellite Catalog Number is a sequential 5-digit number assigned by USSPACECOM to all Earth orbiting satellites in order of identification. Before USSPACECOM, the catalog was maintained by NORAD...
: 23333 - NSSDC International DesignatorInternational DesignatorThe International Designator, also known as COSPAR designation, and in the United States as NSSDC ID, is an international naming convention for satellites...
: 1994-071A
Lists of relevant topics
- List of active Solar System probes
- List of objects at Lagrangian points
- List of Solar System probes
- List of space telescopes
- Timeline of Solar System explorationTimeline of solar system explorationThis is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordered by date of spacecraft launch. It includes:*All spacecraft that have left Earth orbit for the purposes of Solar System exploration , including lunar probes....
Other relevant spacecraft
- Advanced Composition ExplorerAdvanced Composition ExplorerAdvanced Composition Explorer is a NASA space exploration mission being conducted as part of the Explorer program to study matter in situ, comprising energetic particles from the solar wind, the interplanetary medium, and other sources. Real-time data from ACE is used by the Space Weather...
(ACE), launched 1997, still operational. - Cassini–Huygens
- Cluster (spacecraft)
- Helios (spacecraft)
- MESSENGERMESSENGERThe MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging space probe is a robotic NASA spacecraft in orbit around the planet Mercury. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study the chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field of Mercury...
(MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging), launched 2004, still operational. - Radiation Belt Storm ProbesRadiation Belt Storm ProbesThe Radiation Belt Storm Probes is a NASA mission under the Living With a Star program. The goal of the LWS program is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to effectively address those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society...
- Solar Dynamics ObservatorySolar Dynamics ObservatoryThe Solar Dynamics Observatory is a NASA mission which will observe the Sun for over five years. Launched on February 11, 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star program...
(SDO), launched 2010, still operational. - Solar and Heliospheric ObservatorySolar and Heliospheric ObservatoryThe Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is a spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and has discovered over 2100 comets. It began normal operations in May...
(SOHO), launched 1995, still operational. - Solar Maximum MissionSolar Maximum MissionThe Solar Maximum Mission satellite was designed to investigate solar phenomenon, particularly solar flares. It was launched on February 14, 1980....
(SMM), launched 1980, decommissioned 1989. - Solar OrbiterSolar OrbiterSolar Orbiter is a planned Sun-observing satellite, under development by the European Space Agency . The main mission scenario is a launch by an Atlas V from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in January 2017...
(SOLO), set to launch in 2015. - Solar Probe Plus, set to launch in 2015.
- STEREOSTEREOSTEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
(Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory), launched 2006, still operational. - Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), launched 1998, decommissioned 2010.
- Ulysses (spacecraft), launched 1990, decommissioned 2009.
Other relevant topics
- bow shockBow shockA bow shock is the area between a magnetosphere and an ambient medium. For stars, this is typically the boundary between their stellar wind and the interstellar medium....
- coronal mass ejectionCoronal mass ejectionA coronal mass ejection is a massive burst of solar wind, other light isotope plasma, and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space....
- Geomagnetically induced currentGeomagnetically induced currentGeomagnetically induced currents , affecting the normal operation of long electrical conductor systems, are a manifestation at ground level of space weather. During space weather events, electric currents in the magnetosphere and ionosphere experience large variations, which manifest also in the...
- geomagnetic stormGeomagnetic stormA geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a disturbance in the interplanetary medium. A geomagnetic storm is a major component of space weather and provides the input for many other components of space weather...
- magnetic reconnectionMagnetic reconnectionMagnetic reconnection is a physical process in highly conducting plasmas in which the magnetic topology is rearranged and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, thermal energy, and particle acceleration...
- magnetopauseMagnetopauseThe magnetopause is the abrupt boundary between a magnetosphere and the surrounding plasma. For planetary science, the magnetopause is the boundary between the planet’s magnetic field and the solar wind. The location of the magnetopause is determined by the balance between the pressure of the...
- magnetosphereMagnetosphereA magnetosphere is formed when a stream of charged particles, such as the solar wind, interacts with and is deflected by the intrinsic magnetic field of a planet or similar body. Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, as are the other planets with intrinsic magnetic fields: Mercury, Jupiter,...
- plasmaspherePlasmasphereThe plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth's magnetosphere consisting of low energy plasma. It is located above the ionosphere...
- Solar Energetic ParticlesSolar Energetic ParticlesSolar Energetic Particles are high-energy particles coming from the Sun which had been first observed in the early 1940s. They consist of protons, electrons and heavy ions with energy ranging from a few tens of keV to GeV...
- solar flareSolar flareA solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy . The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day...
- solar proton eventSolar proton eventA Solar proton event occurs when protons emitted by the Sun become accelerated to very high energies either close to the Sun during a solar flare or in interplanetary space by the shocks associated with coronal mass ejections. These high energy protons cause several effects. They can penetrate the...
- solar windSolar windThe solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...
- space weatherSpace weatherSpace weather is the concept of changing environmental conditions in near-Earth space or thespace from the Sun's atmosphere to the Earth's atmosphere. It is distinct from the concept ofweather within the Earth's planetary atmosphere...
- SunSunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
External links
- The WIND spacecraft at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- The WIND Spacecraft Experiment
- WIND Near Real-Time Data
- Table of WIND Orbital Events 16-Nov-94 through 25-Oct-97
- WIND Extended Mission Trajectory 10/25/97 4/7/00
- WIND Online Orbit Plotter
- The Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation on the WIND Spacecraft
- GSFC Press Release 01-71 July 25, 2001
- NSSDC Master Catalog Display: WIND
- The WIND Spacecraft