| Abstract: | The Geospace Double Star Exploration Project (DSP) contains two small satel lites operating in the near-earth equatorial and polar regions respectively. The tasks of DSP are: (1) to provide high-resolution field, particle and wave mea surements in several important near-earth active regions which have not been covered by existing ISTP missions, such as the near-earth plasma sheet and its boundary layer, the ring current, the radiation belts, the dayside magnetopause boundary layer, and the polar region; (2) to investigate he trigger mechanisms of magnetic storms, magnetospheric substorms, and magnetospheric particle storms, as well as the responses of geospace storms to solar activities and in terplanetary disturbances; (3) to set up the models describing the spatial and temporal variations of the near-earth space environment.To complete the mission, there are eight instruments on board the equatorial satellite and the polar satellite, respectively. The orbit of the equatorial satellite is proposed with a perigee at 550km and an apogee at 60 000km, and the inclination is about 28.5°; while the orbit of the polar satellite with a perigee at 700 km and an apogee at 40 000 km, as well as an inclination about 90°. The equatorial and polar satellites are planed to be launched into orbits in June 2003 and December 2003 respectively to take coordinating measurements with Cluster Ⅱ and other missions. |
