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- - Spacecraft Brief Description - The Magsat project was a joint NASA/United States Geological Survey (USGS) effort to measure near-earth magnetic fields on a global basis. Objectives included obtaining an accurate description of the earth's magnetic field, obtaining data for use in the update and refinement of world and regional magnetic charts, compilation of a global crustal magnetic anomaly map, and interpretation of that map in terms of geologic/geophysical models of the earth's crust. The spacecraft was launched into a low, near-polar, orbit by the Scout vehicle. The basic spacecraft was made up of two distinct parts: the instrument module that contained a vector and a scalar magnetometer and their unique supporting gear; and the base module that contained the necessary data-handling, power, communications, command, and attitude-control subsystems to support the instrument module. The base module complete with its subsystems was comprised of residual Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS-C) hardware. The magnetometers were deployed after launch to a position 6 m behind the spacecraft. At this distance, the influence of magnetic materials from the instrument and base module (chiefly from the star cameras) was less than 1 nT. - Auxiliary Information - Launch Date and Time : 1979-10-30 14:16:00 Epoch Date and Time : 1979-10-31 Apogee (km or AU): 578.4 Perigee (km or AU): 351.9 Inclination (degree) : 96.8 Orbit Type : Geocentric Information last updated on 1992-04-13 Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: MAGSAT Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Short_Name: MAGSAT End_Group Group: Synonymous_Platform_Names Short_Name: AEM-3 End_Group Group: Orbit Orbit_Inclination: 96.8 deg Perigee: 351.9 km Apogee: 578.4 km End_Group Creation_Date: 2007-11-20 Online_Resource: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Magsat.html Sample_Image: http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Magsat.jpg Group: Platform_Logistics Launch_Date: 1979-10-30 Launch_Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA Primary_Sponsor: NASA End_Group End_Group
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