Synopses & Reviews
The FAST Mission contains detailed discussion of the design philosophy of a new breed of satellite to measure particles and fields in the magnetosphere. The FAST Mission is the only publicly available resource to provide complete and authoritative documentation of the FAST satellite and instruments. The FAST Mission contains detailed examples and descriptions of data gathered by its instruments and will thus be an invaluable source to those working with results from this new observatory. FAST's `snapshot' data gathering approach that utilizes an onboard computer to recognize acceleration physics events and store them in the on-board "burst memory" have revolutionized our understanding of auroral microphysics. Such unique capabilities are described in full in The FAST Mission. The information included herein is unique and not available elsewhere. The book is intended for space physics researchers as well as satellite engineers.
Synopsis
1.1. MISSION BACKGROUND The scientific objective of this magnetospheric physics mission was a detailed in vestigation of the Aurora Borealis, or 'Northern Lights'. The fields experiments (electric and magnetic) were constructed by the University of California at Berke ley (UCB), and Los Angeles (UCLA) respectively. The particles instruments were constructed by UCB and the University of New Hampshire in collaboration with Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory. The instrument data processing unit was provided by UCB. The spacecraft bus, telemetry, and launch services were provided by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center SMEX office. The science principal investigator is Dr C. W. Carlson of UCB, and the program is managed by the SMEX office. The UCB design philosophy emphasizes the demonstration of design margins set by peer review. As a result, each boom system was extensively tested at a prototype level before the flight units were manufactured. Additionally, the design, assembly and testing of each boom mechanism was conducted by a single engineer solely responsible for its success."
Table of Contents
An Overview of the Fast Auroral Snapshot (Fast) Satellite; R. Pfaff, et al. The Electron and Ion Plasma Experiment for Fast; C.W. Carlson, et al. The Fast Satellite Fields Instrument; R.E. Ergun, et al. Deployment Mechanisms on the Fast Satellite: Magnetometer, Radial Wire, and Axial Booms; D. Pankow, et al. The Fast Spacecraft Instrument Data Processing Unit; P.R. Harvey, et al. Magnetic Field Instruments for the Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer; R.C. Elphic, et al. Science Operations and Data Handling for the Fast Satellite; J.P. McFadden, et al. The Time-of-Flight Energy, Angle, Mass Spectrograph (Teams) Experiment for Fast; D.M. Klumpar, et al.