NSSDCA ID: 1966-058A-03
Mission Name: Explorer 33The Ames magnetometer experiment consisted of a boom-mounted triaxial fluxgate magnetometer and an electronics package. The sensors were orthogonally mounted with one sensor oriented along the spin axis of the spacecraft. A motor interchanged a sensor in the spin plane with the sensor along the spin axis every 24 h, allowing inflight zero-level determination. The instrument package included a circuit for spin-demodulating the outputs from the sensors in the spin plane. The noise threshold was about 0.2 nT. The instrument had three ranges covering plus or minus 20, 60, and 200 nT full scale for each vector component. The digitization accuracy for each range was 1% of the entire range covered. The magnetic field vector was measured instantaneously, and the instrument range was changed after each measurement. A period of 2.05 s elapsed between adjacent measurements and 6.14 s between measurements using the same range. For further details, see Mihalov et al., J. Geophys. Res., v. 73, p. 943, 1968. NSSDC has all the useful data that now exist.
Mass: 2.4 kg
Power (avg): 0.7 W
Questions and comments about this experiment can be directed to: Coordinated Request and User Support Office
Name | Role | Original Affiliation | |
---|---|---|---|
Dr. David S. Colburn | General Contact | NASA Ames Research Center | |
Mr. Richard W. Silva | Other Investigator | TRW Systems Group | |
Dr. John H. Wolfe | Other Investigator | NASA Ames Research Center | |
Dr. William J. Kerwin | Other Investigator | NASA Ames Research Center | |
Dr. Charles P. Sonett | Principal Investigator | University of Arizona |