Interball, space project

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INTERBALL ( in Russian: «Интербол») is an international space project under the leadership of the Russian Space Agency and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The list of participants includes the Institute of Atmospheric Research of the Czech Academy of Sciences, NASA, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The goal of the project is to study the correlations between plazma processes in the tail of the magnetosphere and in the Van Allen radiation belt (auroral particles acceleration region) with a high time-space resolution. Two space probes have been launched into high-altitude elliptical orbits:

auroral probe was launched August 29 , 1996 into orbit with an apogee of 20 000 km;
tail probe was launched August 3, 1995 into orbit with an apogee of 200 000 km;

Both orbits are almost parallel to the ecliptic. Each probe consists of a pair satellite-subsatellite. Subsatellites “Magion-4” (auroral) and “Magion-5” (tail) were procured by the Institute of atmospheric Research of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The communication with “Magion-5” was interrupted August 30, 1996 and was restored May 7, 1998. The life expectancy of space vehicles is 12 years.