| definition |
- The DE 2 spacecraft (low-altitude mission) complemented the high-altitude mission DE 1 and was placed into an orbit with a perigee sufficiently low to permit measurements of neutral composition, temperature, and wind. The apogee was high enough to permit measurements above the interaction regions of suprathermal ions, and also plasma flow measurements at the feet of the magnetospheric field lines. The general form of the spacecraft was a short polygon 137 cm in diameter and 115 cm high. The triaxial antennas were 23 m tip-to-tip. One 6-m boom was provided for remote measurements. The spacecraft weight was 403 kg. Power was supplied by a solar cell array, which charged two 6-ampere-hour nickel-cadmium batteries. The spacecraft was three-axis stabilized with the yaw axis aligned toward the center of the earth to within 1 deg. The spin axis was normal to the orbit plane within 1 deg with a spin rate of one revolution per orbit. A single-axis scan platform was included in order to mount the low-altitude plasma instrument (81-070B-08). The platform rotated about the spin axis. A pulse code modulation telemetry data system was used that operated in real time or in a tape-recorder mode. Data were acquired on a science-problem-oriented basis, with closely coordinated operations of the various instruments, both satellites, and supportive experiments. Measurements were temporarily stored on tape recorders before transmission at an 8:1 playback-to-record ratio. Since commands were also stored in a command memory unit, spacecraft operations were not real time. Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: DE-2 Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Platform_Series_or_Entity: DE (Dynamics Explorer) Short_Name: DE-2 Long_Name: Dynamics Explorer-2 End_Group Group: Synonymous_Platform_Names Short_Name: DE 2 Short_Name: DE-B Short_Name: Dynamics Explorer-B Short_Name: Explorer 63 Short_Name: 12625 End_Group Group: Platform_Associated_Instruments Short_Name: RPA Short_Name: VECTOR MAGNETOGRAPHS End_Group Group: Orbit Period: 98 min. End_Group Creation_Date: 2007-09-12 Online_Resource: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1981-070Bdata.html Group: Platform_Logistics Launch_Date: 1981-08-03 Primary_Sponsor: NASA End_Group End_Group
|
