WHISPER, A RESONANCE SOUNDER AND WAVE ANALYSER: PERFORMANCES AND PERSPECTIVES FOR THE CLUSTER MISSION

The WHISPER sounder on the Cluster spacecraft is primarily designed to provide an absolute measurement of the total plasma density within the range 0.2–80 cm^-3. This is achieved by means of a resonance sounding technique which has already proved successful in the regions to be explored. The wave analysis function of the instrument is provided by FFT calculation. Compared with the swept frequency wave analysis of previous sounders, this technique has several new capabilities. In particular, when used for natural wave measurements (which cover here the 2–80 kHz range), it offers a flexible trade-off between time and frequency resolutions. In the basic nominal operational mode, the density is measured every 28 s, the frequency and time resolution for the wave measurements are about 600 Hz and 2.2 s, respectively. Better resolutions can be obtained, especially when the spacecraft telemetry is in burst mode. Special attention has been paid to the coordination of WHISPER operations with the wave instruments, as well as with the low-energy particle counters. When operated from the multi-spacecraft Cluster, the WHISPER instrument is expected to contribute in particular to the study of plasma waves in the electron foreshock and solar wind, to investigations about small-scale structures via density and high-frequency emission signatures, and to the analysis of the non-thermal continuum in the magnetosphere.     

The Polar plasma wave instrument

The Plasma Wave Instrument on the Polar spacecraft is designed to provide measurements of plasma waves in the Earth's polar regions over the frequency range from 0.1 Hz to 800 kHz. Three orthogonal electric dipole antennas are used to detect electric fields, two in the spin plane and one aligned along the spacecraft spin axis. A magnetic loop antenna and a triaxial magnetic search coil antenna are used to detect magnetic fields. Signals from these antennas are processed by five receiver systems: a wideband receiver, a high-frequency waveform receiver, a low-frequency waveform receiver, two multichannel analyzers; and a pair of sweep frequency receivers. Compared to previous plasma wave instruments, the Polar plasma wave instrument has several new capabilities. These include (1) an expanded frequency range to improve coverage of both low- and high-frequency wave phenomena, (2) the ability to simultaneously capture signals from six orthogonal electric and magnetic field sensors, and (3) a digital wideband receiver with up to 8-bit resolution and sample rates as high as 249k samples s^–1.     

The Galileo Plasma wave investigation

The purpose of the Galileo plasma wave investigation is to study plasma waves and radio emissions in the magnetosphere of Jupiter. The plasma wave instrument uses an electric dipole antenna to detect electric fields, and two search coil magnetic antennas to detect magnetic fields. The frequency range covered is 5 Hz to 5.6 MHz for electric fields and 5 Hz to 160 kHz for magnetic fields. Low time-resolution survey spectrums are provided by three on-board spectrum analyzers. In the normal mode of operation the frequency resolution is about 10%, and the time resolution for a complete set of electric and magnetic field measurements is 37.33 s. High time-resolution spectrums are provided by a wideband receiver. The wideband receiver provides waveform measurements over bandwidths of 1, 10, and 80 kHz. These measurements can be either transmitted to the ground in real time, or stored on the spacecraft tape recorder. On the ground the waveforms are Fourier transformed and displayed as frequency-time spectrogams. Compared to previous measurements at Jupiter this instrument has several new capabilities. These new capabilities include (1) both electric and magnetic field measurements to distinguish electrostatic and electromagnetic waves, (2) direction finding measurements to determine source locations, and (3) increased bandwidth for the wideband measurements.Deceased     

RPC-LAP: The Rosetta Langmuir Probe Instrument

The Rosetta dual Langmuir probe instrument, LAP, utilizes the multiple powers of a pair of spherical Langmuir probes for measurements of basic plasma parameters with the aim of providing detailed knowledge of the outgassing, ionization, and subsequent plasma processes around the Rosetta target comet. The fundamental plasma properties to be studied are the plasma density, the electron temperature, and the plasma flow velocity. However, study of electric fields up to 8 kHz, plasma density fluctuations, spacecraft potential, integrated UV flux, and dust impacts is also possible. LAP is fully integrated in the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC), the instruments of which together provide a comprehensive characterization of the cometary plasma. The LAP Team is listed in Table III.     

THE CLUSTER ION SPECTROMETRY (CIS) EXPERIMENT

The Cluster Ion Spectrometry (CIS) experiment is a comprehensive ionic plasma spectrometry package on-board the four Cluster spacecraft capable of obtaining full three-dimensional ion distributions with good time resolution (one spacecraft spin) with mass per charge composition determination. The requirements to cover the scientific objectives cannot be met with a single instrument. The CIS package therefore consists of two different instruments, a Hot Ion Analyser (HIA) and a time-of-flight ion COmposition and DIstribution Function analyser (CODIF), plus a sophisticated dual-processor-based instrument-control and Data-Processing System (DPS), which permits extensive on-board data-processing. Both analysers use symmetric optics resulting in continuous, uniform, and well-characterised phase space coverage. CODIF measures the distributions of the major ions (H⁺, He⁺, He⁺⁺, and O⁺) with energies from ~0 to 40 keV/e with medium (22.5°) angular resolution and two different sensitivities. HIA does not offer mass resolution but, also having two different sensitivities, increases the dynamic range, and has an angular resolution capability (5.6° × 5.6°) adequate for ion-beam and solar-wind measurements.     

The Multi-Needle Langmuir Probe System on Board NorSat-1

On July 14th, 2017, the first Norwegian scientific satellite NorSat-1 was launched into a high-inclination (98^°), low-Earth orbit (600 km altitude) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. As part of the payload package, NorSat-1 carries the multi-needle Langmuir probe (m-NLP) instrument which is capable of sampling the electron density at a rate up to 1 kHz, thus offering an unprecedented opportunity to continuously resolve ionospheric plasma density structures down to a few meters. Over the coming years, NorSat-1 will cross the equatorial and polar regions twice every 90 minutes, providing a wealth of data that will help to better understand the mechanisms that dissipate energy input from larger spatial scales by creating small-scale plasma density structures within the ionosphere. In this paper we describe the m-NLP system on board NorSat-1 and present some first results from the instrument commissioning phase. We show that the m-NLP instrument performs as expected and highlight its unique capabilities at resolving small-scale ionospheric plasma density structures.     

The Cluster Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Field Fluctuations (STAFF) Experiment

The Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Field Fluctuations (STAFF) experiment is one of five experiments which together comprise the Wave Experiment Consortium (WEC). STAFF consists of a three-axis search coil magnetometer to measure magnetic fluctuations at frequencies up to 4 kHz, and a spectrum analyser to calculate in near-real time aboard the spacecraft, the complete auto- and cross-spectral matrices using the three magnetic and two electric components of the electromagnetic field. The magnetic waveform at frequencies below either 10 Hz or 180 Hz is also transmitted. The sensitivity of the search coil is adapted to the phenomena theo be studied: the values 3 × 10^-3 nT Hz^-1/2 and 3 × 10^-5 nT Hz^-1/2 are achieved respectively at 1 Hz and 100 Hz. The dynamic range of the STAFF instruments is about 96 dB in both waveform and spectral power, so as to allow the study of waves near plasma boundaries. Scientific objectives of the STAFF investigations, particularly those requiring four point measurements, are discussed. Methods by which the wave data will be characterised are described with emphasis on those specific to four-point measurements, including the use of the Field Energy Distribution function.     

Early results from the ISEE electron density experiment

The ISEE-1 and 2 spacecraft contain two complementary experiments to measure the ambient electron density by radio techniques: a propagation experiment which measures the integrated electron density between ISEE-1 and 2, and a resonance sounder which measures the electron density in the vicinity of ISEE-1, and also provides AC electric field data. These experiments have been described elsewhere (Harvey et al., 1978). Results from these two experiments are presented here for the first time. The propagation experiment permits high time resolution studies of density fluctuations in the solar wind and magnetospheric frontier regions. The sounder experiment has detected for the first time plasma resonances in the solar wind and in the Earth's magnetosheath, as well as in the regions of the magnetosphere where resonances have already been observed by the spacecraft GEOS-1. We present here a preliminary review of the different types of electric field noise observed in the solar wind and magnetosheath, and discuss their relationship to the measured plasma density.CRPE/CNET, 92131 Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.     

Plasma characteristics determined by the Freja electric field instrument

A new approach to the study of ionospheric plasma characteristics is presented using data from the Freja double probe electric field instrument. Plasma characteristics are derived from continuous measurements of the satellite potential and from intermittent Langmuir sweeps. These provide information on both relative variations in the plasma density and absolute density and temperature, useful for comparisons with other plasma measurements on Freja, and essential for the interpretation of the electric field measurements. The on-board memory makes it possible to obtain full-orbit coverage of this type of information, which is a new feature of the Freja measurements. The memory is also used for high time resolution Langmuir sweeps which allow for the first time detailed studies of the time behavior of the probe response and computation of the probe-plasma capacitance. Comparisons are also made with similar measurements on earlier missions.     

THE CLUSTER MAGNETIC FIELD INVESTIGATION

The Cluster mission provides a new opportunity to study plasma processes and structures in the near-Earth plasma environment. Four-point measurements of the magnetic field will enable the analysis of the three dimensional structure and dynamics of a range of phenomena which shape the macroscopic properties of the magnetosphere. Difference measurements of the magnetic field data will be combined to derive a range of parameters, such as the current density vector, wave vectors, and discontinuity normals and curvatures, using classical time series analysis techniques iteratively with physical models and simulation of the phenomena encountered along the Cluster orbit. The control and understanding of error sources which affect the four-point measurements are integral parts of the analysis techniques to be used. The flight instrumentation consists of two, tri-axial fluxgate magnetometers and an on-board data-processing unit on each spacecraft, built using a highly fault-tolerant architecture. High vector sample rates (up to 67 vectors s^-1) at high resolution (up to 8 pT) are combined with on-board event detection software and a burst memory to capture the signature of a range of dynamic phenomena. Data-processing plans are designed to ensure rapid dissemination of magnetic-field data to underpin the collaborative analysis of magnetospheric phenomena encountered by Cluster.     

The Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation

The Cassini radio and plasma wave investigation is designed to study radio emissions, plasma waves, thermal plasma, and dust in the vicinity of Saturn. Three nearly orthogonal electric field antennas are used to detect electric fields over a frequency range from 1 Hz to 16 MHz, and three orthogonal search coil magnetic antennas are used to detect magnetic fields over a frequency range from 1 Hz to 12 kHz. A Langmuir probe is used to measure the electron density and temperature. Signals from the electric and magnetic antennas are processed by five receiver systems: a high frequency receiver that covers the frequency range from 3.5 kHz to 16 MHz, a medium frequency receiver that covers the frequency range from 24 Hz to 12 kHz, a low frequency receiver that covers the frequency range from 1 Hz to 26 Hz, a five-channel waveform receiver that covers the frequency range from 1 Hz to 2.5 kHz in two bands, 1 Hz to 26 Hz and 3 Hz to 2.5 kHz, and a wideband receiver that has two frequency bands, 60 Hz to 10.5 kHz and 800 Hz to 75 kHz. In addition, a sounder transmitter can be used to stimulate plasma resonances over a frequency range from 3.6 kHz to 115.2 kHz. Fluxes of micron-sized dust particles can be counted and approximate masses of the dust particles can be determined using the same techniques as Voyager. Compared to Voyagers 1 and 2, which are the only spacecraft that have made radio and plasma wave measurements in the vicinity of Saturn, the Cassini radio and plasma wave instrument has several new capabilities. These include (1) greatly improved sensitivity and dynamic range, (2) the ability to perform direction-finding measurements of remotely generated radio emissions and wave normal measurements of plasma waves, (3) both active and passive measurements of plasma resonances in order to give precise measurements of the local electron density, and (4) Langmuir probe measurements of the local electron density and temperature. With these new capabilities, it will be possible to perform a broad range of studies of radio emissions, wave-particle interactions, thermal plasmas and dust in the vicinity of Saturn.DeceasedThis revised version was published online in July 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

The Electron and ion Plasma Experiment for Fast

The ion and electron plasma experiment on the Fast Auroral Snapshot satellite (FAST) is designed to measure pitch-angle distributions of suprathermal auroral electrons and ions with high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, good energy and angular resolution, and exceptional time resolution. These measurements support the primary scientific goal of the FAST mission to understand the physical processes responsible for auroral particle acceleration and heating, and associated wave-particle interactions. The instrument includes a complement of 8 pairs of `Top Hat' electrostatic analyzer heads with microchannel plate (MCP) electron multipliers and discrete anodes to provide angle resolved measurements. The analyzers are packaged in four instrument stacks, each containing four analyzers. These four stacks are equally spaced around the spacecraft spin plane. Analyzers mounted on opposite sides of the spacecraft operate in pairs such that their individual 180° fields of view combine to give an unobstructed 360° field of view in the spin plane. The earth's magnetic field is within a few degrees of the spin plane during most auroral crossings, so the time resolution for pitch-angle distribution measurements is independent of the spacecraft spin period. Two analyzer pairs serve as electron and ion spectrometers that obtain distributions of 48 energies at 32 angles every 78 ms. Their standard energy ranges are 4 eV to 32 keV for electrons and 3 eV to 24 keV for ions. These sensors also have deflection plates that can track the magnetic field direction within 10° of the spin plane to resolve narrow, magnetic field-aligned beams of electrons and ions. The remaining six analyzer pairs collectively function as an electron spectrograph, resolving distributions with 16 contiguous pitch-angle bins and a selectable trade-off of energy and time resolution. Two examples of possible operating modes are a maximum time resolution mode with 16 angles and 6 energies every 1.63 ms, or a maximum energy resolution mode with 16 angles and 48 energies every 13 ms. The instrument electronics include mcp pulse amplifiers and counters, high voltage supplies, command/data interface circuits, and diagnostic test circuits. All data formatting, commanding, timing and operational control of the plasma analyzer instrument are managed by a central instrument data processing unit (IDPU), which controls all of the FAST science instruments. The IDPU creates slower data modes by averaging the high rate measurements collected on the spacecraft. A flexible combination of burst mode data and slower `survey' data are defined by IDPU software tables that can be revised by command uploads. Initial flight results demonstrate successful achievement of all measurement objectives.     

The Freja wave and plasma density experiment

The Wave Experiment, F4, on the Swedish/German satelliteFreja, is designed to measure the electric wave fields up to 4 MHz, the magnetic wave fields up to 16 kHz and the plasma density and its relative variations up to 2 kHz. Six wave signals and four density probe signals can be measured simultaneously. The wave forms of all signals are transmitted to ground without any analysis onboard. The limited TM allocation does not allow continuous sampling of the wave signals, so normally the measurements are made in snapshots of various lengths dependent on sampling frequency, etc. Continuous sampling can be made for shorter time periods by using a 6 Mbyte memory as a buffer.     

The THEMIS ESA Plasma Instrument and In-flight Calibration

The THEMIS plasma instrument is designed to measure the ion and electron distribution functions over the energy range from a few eV up to 30 keV for electrons and 25 keV for ions. The instrument consists of a pair of “top hat” electrostatic analyzers with common 180°×6° fields-of-view that sweep out 4π steradians each 3 s spin period. Particles are detected by microchannel plate detectors and binned into six distributions whose energy, angle, and time resolution depend upon instrument mode. On-board moments are calculated, and processing includes corrections for spacecraft potential. This paper focuses on the ground and in-flight calibrations of the 10 sensors on five spacecraft. Cross-calibrations were facilitated by having all the plasma measurements available with the same resolution and format, along with spacecraft potential and magnetic field measurements in the same data set. Lessons learned from this effort should be useful for future multi-satellite missions.     

The Lunar Gravity Ranging System for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission

The Lunar Gravity Ranging System (LGRS) flying on NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission measures fluctuations in the separation between the two GRAIL orbiters with sensitivity below 0.6 microns/Hz^1/2. GRAIL adapts the mission design and instrumentation from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to a make a precise gravitational map of Earth’s Moon. Phase measurements of Ka-band carrier signals transmitted between spacecraft with line-of-sight separations between 50 km to 225 km provide the primary observable. Measurements of time offsets between the orbiters, frequency calibrations, and precise orbit determination provided by the Global Positioning System on GRACE are replaced by an S-band time-transfer cross link and Deep Space Network Doppler tracking of an X-band radioscience beacon and the spacecraft telecommunications link. Lack of an atmosphere at the Moon allows use of a single-frequency link and elimination of the accelerometer compared to the GRACE instrumentation. This paper describes the implementation, testing and performance of the instrument complement flown on the two GRAIL orbiters.     

THE CLUSTER MISSION: ESA'S SPACEFLEET TO THE MAGNETOSPHERE

During the first half of 1996, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch a unique flotilla of spacecraft to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere in unprecedented detail. The Cluster mission was first proposed to the Agency in late 1982 and was selected, together with SOHO, as the Solar Terrestrial Science Programme (STSP), the first cornerstone of ESA's Horizon 2000 Programme. It is a complex four-spacecraft mission designed to carry out three-dimensional measurements of the magnetosphere, covering both large- and small-scale phenomena in the sunward and tail regions. The mission is a first for ESA in a number of ways: – the first time that four identical spacecraft have been launched on a single launch vehicle, – the first time that ESA has built spacecraft in true series production and operated them as a single group, – the first time that European scientific institutes have produced a series of up to five instruments with full intercalibration, and – the first launch of the Agency's new heavy launch vehicle Ariane-5. The article gives an overview of this unique mission and the requirements that governed the spacecraft design. It then describes in detail the resulting design and how the particular engineering challenges posed by the series production of four identical spacecraft and sets of scientific instruments were met by the combined efforts of the ESA Project Team, Industry and the experiment teams.     

The FAST Satellite Fields Instrument

We describe the electric field sensors and electric and magnetic field signal processing on the FAST (Fast Auroral SnapshoT) satellite. The FAST satellite was designed to make high time resolution observations of particles and electromagnetic fields in the auroral zone to study small-scale plasma interactions in the auroral acceleration region. The DC and AC electric fields are measured with three-axis dipole antennas with 56 m, 8 m, and 5 m baselines. A three-axis flux-gate magnetometer measures the DC magnetic field and a three-axis search coil measures the AC magnetic field. A central signal processing system receives all signals from the electric and magnetic field sensors. Spectral coverage is from DC to 4 MHz. There are several types of processed data. Survey data are continuous over the auroral zone and have full-orbit coverage for fluxgate magnetometer data. Burst data include a few minutes of a selected region of the auroral zone at the highest time resolution. A subset of the burst data, high speed burst memory data, are waveform data at 2×10⁶ sample s^–1. Electric field and magnetic field data are primarily waveforms and power spectral density as a function of frequency and time. There are also various types of focused data processing, including cross-spectral analysis, fine-frequency plasma wave tracking, high-frequency polarity measurement, and wave-particle correlations.     

Initial results from the ISEE-1 and -2 plasma wave investigation

In this paper we present an initial survey of results from the plasma wave experiments on the ISEE-1 and -2 spacecraft which are in nearly identical orbits passing through the Earth's magnetosphere at radial distances out to about 22.5R _e . Essentially every crossing of the Earth's bow shock can be associated with an intense burst of electrostatic and whistler-mode turbulence at the shock, with substantial wave intensities in both the upstream and downstream regions. Usually the electric and magnetic field spectrum at the shock are quite similar for both spacecraft, although small differences in the detailed structure are sometimes apparent upstream and downstream of the shock, probably due to changes in the motion of the shock or propagation effects. Upstream of the shock emissions are often observed at both the fundamental, f _- ^p , and second harmonic, 2f _p ^- , of the electron plasma frequency. In the magnetosphere high resolution spectrograms of the electric field show an extremely complex distribution of plasma and radio emissions, with numerous resonance and cutoff effects. Electron density profiles can be obtained from emissions near the local electron plasma frequency. Comparisons of high resolution spectrograms of whistler-mode emissions such as chorus detected by the two spacecraft usually show a good overall similarity but marked differences in detailed structure on time scales less than one minute. Other types of locally generated waves, such as the (n+1/2)f _- ^g electron cyclotron waves, show a better correspondence between the two spacecraft. High resolution spectrograms of kilometric radio emissions are also presented which show an extremely complex frequency-time structure with many closely spaced narrow-band emissions.     

Electron,Proton, and Alpha Monitor on the Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft

The Electron, Proton, and Alpha Monitor (EPAM) is designed to make measurements of ions and electrons over a broad range of energy and intensity. Through five separate solid-state detector telescopes oriented so as to provide nearly full coverage of the unit-sphere, EPAM can uniquely distinguish ions (Ei≳50 keV) and electrons (Ee≳40 keV) providing the context for the measurements of the high sensitivity instruments on ACE. Using a ΔE×E telescope, the instrument can determine ion elemental abundances (E≳0.5 MeV nucl−1). The large angular coverage and high time resolution will serve to alert the other instruments on ACE of interesting anisotropic events. The experiment is controlled by a microprocessor-based data system, and the entire instrument has been reconfigured from the HI-SCALE instrument on the Ulysses spacecraft. Inflight calibration is achieved using a variety of radioactive sources mounted on the reclosable telescope covers. Besides the coarse (8 channel) ion and (4 channel) electron energy spectra, the instrument is also capable of providing energy spectra with 32 logarithmically spaced channels using a pulse-height-analyzer. The instrument, along with its mounting bracket and radiators weighs 11.8 kg and uses about 4.0 W of power. To demonstrate some of the capabilities of the instrument, some initial performance data are included from a solar energetic particle event in November 1997. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.