| Name | FGM, fluxgate magnetometer | ||||||||||
| Mission | Double Star | ||||||||||
| URL | https://csa.esac.esa.int/csa-web/#search | ||||||||||
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-eivu2p0 | ||||||||||
| Abstract | One of the primary objectives of the Double Star mission is the accurate measurement of the magnetic field vector along the orbits of the two spacecraft. The magnetic field is an essential parameter for the understanding of space plasma processes and is also required for the effective interpretation of data from the other instruments on the spacecraft. The FluxGate Magnetometer (FGM) experiments on TC-1 and TC-2 consist of two sensors: the outer sensor is placed at the tip of a 3.1 m long boom and the inner sensor is 50 cm closer to the spacecraft. Due to a wrong wiring of the solar panels on TC-1, very large magnetic interferences (20-30 nT) occur in the magnetic field measurements. With help of European expertise, the solar array wiring was quickly corrected for TC-2 within a few months in Spring 2004 before its launch. Furthermore, the shunting system of the spacecraft solar power system caused sudden changes in the level of interferences. Finally the observations suffered from frequent telemetry errors causing random spikes in the data. With help of dual fluxgate measurements and signal processing technique, the data have been cleaned first from the spikes and then from the solar array disturbances to an accuracy of better than 0.5 nT for most of the time. The cleaning of the data was an effort led by ESA, in collaboration with the PI teams. | ||||||||||
| Description | FGM scientific datasets
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| Publication | Carr, C., et al. , The Double Star Magnetic field investigation: instrument design, performance and highlights of the first year‘s observations, Ann. Geophys., 23, 2713-2732, 2005; https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-2713-2005 | ||||||||||
| Temporal Coverage | 2003-12-29T19:06:00.000Z - 2009-12-31T23:59:59.000Z | ||||||||||
| Mission Description | The Double Star Program (DSP) is the first mission in collaboration between China and ESA. The mission is made of two spacecraft to investigate the magnetospheric global processes and their response to the interplanetary disturbances in conjunction with the Cluster mission. The first spacecraft, TC-1 (Tan Ce means "Explorer"), was launched on 29 December 2003, and the second one, TC-2, on 25 July 2004 on board two Chinese Long March 2C rockets. TC-1 was injected in an equatorial orbit of 570x79000 km altitude with a 28° inclination and TC-2 in a polar orbit of 560x38000 km altitude. The orbits have been designed to complement the Cluster mission by maximizing the time when both Cluster and Double Star are in the same scientific regions. The two missions allow simultaneous observations of the Earth magnetosphere from six points in space. To facilitate the comparison of data, half of the Double Star payload is made of spare or duplicates of the Cluster instruments; the other half is made of Chinese instruments. Liu, Z.X., C.P. Escoubet, Z. Pu, H. Laakso, J.K. Shi, C. Shen, M. Hapgood, The Double Star Mission, Ann. Geophys., 23, 2707-2712, 2005; https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-2707-2005 |
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| Creator Contact | Chris Carr, Principal Investigator, Imperial College, United Kingdom, c.m.carr@imperial.ac.uk
Tielong Zhang, Principal Investigator, Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria, Harri Laakso, Cluster Mission Manager, Euopean Space Agency |
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| Publisher And Registrant | European Space Agency | ||||||||||
| Credit Guidelines | When publishing any works related to this experiment, please cite the experiment DOI found herein and mission DOI (where appropriate). |