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- The objective of the LEP experiment on Geotail is to observe plasma and
energetic electrons and ions in the terrestrial magnetosphere and in the
interplanetary medium.
The LEP consists of three sensors: LEP-EA, LEP-SW, and LEP-MS, with common
electronics (LEP-E).
LEP-EA measures three-dimensional velocity distributions of hot plasma in the
magnetosphere. EA consists of two nested sets of quadrispherical electrostatic
analyzers. The inner analyzer measures electrons in the energy range from 6--36
eV, and the outer one measures positive ions from 7 eV/Q to 42 keV/Q. The field
of view for each quadrispherical analyzer covers 10 degrees by 145 degrees,
where the longer dimension is parallel to the satellite spin axis.
LEP-SW measures three-dimensional velocity distributions of solar wind ions in
the energy range from 0.1--8 keV/Q with a 270 degree spherical electrostatic
analyzer with a field of view of 5 degrees by 60 degrees.
LEP-MS is an energetic ion mass spectrometer, which provides three-dimensional
determinations of the ion composition in 32 steps over the energy range of
0--25 keV/Q. All sensors operate continuously as long as the spacecraft power
budget can allow, except for the orbit/attitude maneuvering operation.
When spacecraft power budget is not sufficient to fully operate the
instruments, priority is given to LEP-EA and LEP-E.
Although this experiment ceased operation shortly after launch, the LEP-EA and
LEP-SW portions of the experiment resumed operation in late 1993 and have
worked well ever since.
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Tsugunobu Nagai
Tokyo Institue of Technology
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Tokyo 152-8551 Japan
Phone:
Fax:
e-mail: nagai@geo.titech.ac.jp
See:
http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/geotail_inst.shtml
Group: Instrument_Details
Entry_ID: LEP
Group: Instrument_Identification
Instrument_Category: Solar/Space Observing Instruments
Instrument_Class: Particle Detectors
Short_Name: LEP
Long_Name: Low Energy Particles (Geotail)
End_Group
Group: Associated_Platforms
Short_Name: GEOTAIL
End_Group
Online_Resource: http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/geotail_inst.shtml#LEP
Group: Instrument_Logistics
Instrument_Start_Date: 1992-07-24
Instrument_Owner: ISAS, Japan
End_Group
End_Group
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