The Fast Auroral Snapshot (FAST) mission was a satellite designed to study Earth’s aurora. It was the second mission in NASA’s Small Explorer Satellite Program (SMEX). This highly successful spacecraft has helped scientists answer fundamental questions about the causes and makeup of the aurora; please see publications or nuggets that have come from analysis of FAST data. FAST’s primary objective was to study the microphysics of space plasma and the accelerated particles that cause the aurora.

Website
sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu
Location

Earth Orbit

Type

Engineering, Research

Schedule

1996-2009

Partners

Goddard Spaceflight Center, University of California Los Angeles, University of New Hampshire, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Minnesota

PI

Charles Carlson

Team

Rob Pfaff

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