GSFC Magnetometer

Description

The experiment consisted of a boom-mounted triaxial fluxgate magnetometer. Each sensor had dual ranges of minus to plus 24 nT and 64 nT, with digitization resolutions of minus to plus 0.094 nT and 0.25 nT, respectively. Zero level drift was checked by periodic reorientation of the sensors until May 20, 1969, when the flipper mechanism failed. Past this point, data analysis was more difficult as the zero level drift of the sensor parallel to the spacecraft spin axis was not readily determined. Spacecraft interference was less than 0.125 nT. One vector measurement was obtained each 5.12 s. The bandpass of the magnetometer was 0 to 5 Hz, with a 20-dB per decade decrease for higher frequencies. Except for the flipper failure, the experiment functioned normally from launch to spacecraft turnoff (June 24, 1973). For further details, see Ness et al., J. Geophys. Res., v. 72, p. 5769, 1969. NSSDC has all the useful data that exist from this investigation. Hourly averaged interplanetary data also exist as part of data sets in the NSSDC supplementary data file.