MINIS
The MINIature Spectrometer (MINIS) test balloon project was an effort to understand the size, frequency and mechanisms of relativistic electron precipitation from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere. It looked for electromagnetic indications of magnetospheric waves which might be responsible for scattering relativistic electrons out of their repetitive motions in the magnetosphere and down into Earth’s…
Read MoreISUAL
The Imager for Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL) was a cooperation between the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California at Berkeley with the National Chen Kung University (NCKU). This cooperation was part of the FORMOSAT-2 project sponsored by the National Space Program Office of Taiwan (NSPO). It was the first specifically…
Read MoreAutomated Geophysical Observatories
The Automated Geophysical Observatories are a ground-based, autonomous, low-power atmospheric lidar instrument developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which operated for an extended period on the Antarctic polar plateau.
Read MorePENGUIn
The Polar Experiment Network for Geospace Upper-atmosphere Investigations (PENGUIn) project involved measuring LF/MF/HF signals at ground level from remote sites in Antarctica. The primary scientific goal is to characterize natural emissions from the Earth’s aurora. Several types of emissions are known, but in some cases the physics of their generation and propagation are not understood.…
Read MoreCINEMA (2012)
CINEMA was an international nanosatellite science mission of cooperative university institutions with the objective to provide critical space weather measurements, including unique high sensitivity mapping of ENAs (Energetic Neutral Atoms), and high cadence movies of ring current ENAs in stereo from low Earth orbit. By the selection of its sensor complement, the mission will pave…
Read MoreVan Allen Probes
Originally designed for a two-year mission, NASA’s Van Allen Probes A and B launched on Aug. 30, 2012, and gathered unprecedented data on the Van Allen belts for almost seven years. The mission made several major discoveries about how the radiation belts operate during its lifetime, including the first data showing the existence of a transient third radiation…
Read MoreCINEMA(2030)
The Cross-scale Investigation of Earth’s Magnetotail and Aurora (CINEMA) mission aims to advance our understanding of how plasma energy flows into the Earth’s magnetosphere. This highly dynamic convective flow is unpredictable — sometimes steady and sometimes explosive — driving phenomena like fast plasma jets, global electrical current systems, and spectacular auroral displays.
Read MoreBARREL
The Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses (BARREL) is a multiple-balloon investigation that will studied Earth’s Radiation Belts. Atmospheric losses of relativistic electrons play an important role in radiation belt dynamics; precipitation into the atmosphere may even completely deplete the radiation belts in some cases. BARREL is the first NASA Living with a Star Geospace…
Read MoreTRICE-2
The Twin Rockets to Investigate Cusp Electrodynamics (TRICE-2) explored magnetic reconnection—the explosive process that allows charged particles from space to stream into Earth’s atmosphere. The results promise to shed light on the fundamental process of magnetic reconnection and, in the long run, help us better predict how and when Earth’s magnetic shield can suddenly become…
Read MoreTHEMIS
The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission studies how mass and energy move through the near-Earth space environment to determine the physical processes initiating auroras. It was originally comprised of five satellites spread out in Earth’s magnetotail. Two of the satellites were redirected to a lunar orbit and are operating…
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