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Friday, June 12, 2015

The 2015 Earth-Orbiting Heliophysics Fleet

There've been a few changes since the 2013 Earth-Orbiting Heliophysics Fleet. As of Spring of 2015, here's a tour of the NASA Near-Earth Heliophysics fleet, covering the space from near-Earth orbit out to the orbit of the Moon.The satellite orbits are color coded for their observing program:Magenta: TIM (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere) observationsYellow: solar observations and imageryCyan: Geospace and magnetosphereViolet: Heliospheric observationsNear-Earth Fleet:Hinode: Observes the Sun in multiple wavelengths up to x-rays. SVS pageRHESSI : Observes the Sun in x-rays and gamma-rays. SVS pageTIMED: Studies the upper layers (40-110 miles up) of the Earth's atmosphere.FAST: Measures particles and fields in regions where aurora form.CINDI: Measures interactions of neutral and charged particles in the ionosphere. SORCE: Monitors solar intensity across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum.AIM: Images and measures noctilucent clouds. SVS pageVan Allen Probes: Two probes moving along the same orbit esigned to study the impact of space weather on Earth's radiation belts. SVS pageTWINS: Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers (TWINS) are two probes observing the Earth with neutral atom imagers.IRIS: Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph is designed to take high-resolution spectra and images of the region between the solar photosphere and solar atmosphere.Geosynchronous Fleet:SDO: Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps the Sun under continuous observation at 16 megapixel resolution.Geospace Fleet:Geotail: Conducts measurements of electrons and ions in the Earth's magnetotail. Magnetospheric Multi-scale (MMS): This is a group of four satellites which fly in formation to measure how particles and fields in the magnetosphere vary in space and time. SVS pageTHEMIS: This is a fleet of three satellites to study how magnetospheric instabilities produce substorms. Two of the original five satellites were moved into lunar orbit to become ARTEMIS. SVS page IBEX: The Interstellar Boundary Explorer measures the flux of neutral atoms from the heliopause.Lunar Orbiting FleetARTEMIS: Two of the THEMIS satellites were moved into lunar orbit to study the interaction of the Earth's magnetosphere with the Moon. Major changes with earlier versions: MMS addedGOES satellites removedCluster satellites removedCamera moves around the night-side of Earth.

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