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- This article is about the WIND spacecraft. For the radio station, see WIND (AM).
The Global Geospace Science (GGS) WIND satellite is a NASA science spacecraft launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Merritt Island, Florida aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket. WIND was designed and manufactured by Martin Marietta Astro Space Division in East Windsor, New Jersey.
It was deployed to study radio and plasma that occur in the solar wind and in the Earth's magnetosphere. The spacecraft's original mission was to orbit the Sun at the L1 Lagrangian point, but this was delayed when the SOHO and ACE spacecraft were sent to the same location. WIND has been at L1 continuously since 2004, and is still operating as of April 2008.[1]
Mission Operations are conducted from the WIND/POLAR Mission Operations Room (MOR) in Building 3 at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
WIND is the sister ship to GGS Polar.
The first of NASA's Global Geospace Science (GGS) program.
[edit] The science objectives of the WIND mission
- Provide complete plasma, energetic particle, and magnetic field input for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies.
- Determine the magnetospheric output to interplanetary space in the up-stream region.
- Investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind.
- Provide baseline ecliptic plane observations to be used in heliospheric latitudes from ULYSSES.
[edit] Other Names
[edit] References
- ^ Lockheed Martin Press Release, April 30, 2008
[edit] See also
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Spaceflight missions studying the Sun |
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| Sample return |
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| Future |
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| Cancelled |
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| Bold italics indicates active missions |
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[edit] External links
