NSSDCA ID: SPMS-00242
Availability: At NSSDC, Ready for Offline Distribution (or Staging if Digital)
Time span: 1987-01-01 to 1988-06-29
This data set consists of 35-mm color slides, grouped together as one package per orbit. Each package contains several slides, depending upon the operational mode of the instrument. Typically, the instrument was operated in the "mass average" mode for about 3 days/month and in the "energy average" mode for 27 days/month. Mass average mode: there are seven such slides per orbit. One slide provides the following 6.4-min averages: differential flux (in color code) of ions, irrespective of mass, in an energy vs time panel; differential fluxes of ions in energy ranges 0-1, 1-4, and 4-18 keV, in three separate panels of pitch angle vs time; and a similar set of 1+3 panels for the electrons. There are three slides, each covering a time span of 1/3 of an orbit, that provide 32-min averages of fluxes (counts/s) in color code, in panels of mass channel number vs energy, from the counts accumulated when the field of view was parallel or antiparallel to the B-field. Likewise, there are three more slides that are based on the fluxes collected perpendicular to the B-field. Energy average mode: there are three slides per orbit. One slide is essentially the same as the 6.4-min slide described above. Another slide provides, in five separate panels, the differential fluxes of H+, O+, He+, He++, and O++, in color code, and on a time vs energy format. The third slide deals with the pitch angle distribution of the H+ and O+ fluxes (color coded) in panels of time vs energy. All three of these slides use 6.4-min averages of the counts. All the above-mentioned slides contain information on the spacecraft coordinates such as magnetic latitude, local time, and L-value. The documentation that is available with the data set provides additional information. The data processing software evolved through about 22 versions and the plotting software through about eight versions before the NSSDC slides were produced at the APL/JHU AMPTE-CCE Data Center. Finally, with a scientific rationale, these slides from the Hot Plasma Composition Experiment are actually a subset of a composite data set that contains slides from the other two ion experiments on CCE, i.e., 84-088A-02 and 84-088A-03, which cover higher energy ranges. The ion mass spectrometer of the 84-088A-01 experiment has been inoperational since April 4, 1985.
Questions and comments about this data collection can be directed to: Coordinated Request and User Support Office
Name | Role | Original Affiliation | |
---|---|---|---|
Mr. Stuart R. Nylund | General Contact | Applied Physics Laboratory | stuart_nylund@jhuapl.edu |