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Revision as of 19:01, 8 October 2022 edit 18.31.11.127 (talk) →Spacecraft: All non-wikipedia sources (including NASA) says that the antennas forming the X-Y plane is 200 meters tip-to-tip. Only Wikipedia articles say 200 centimeters. I believe this is a typo, and all mentions of 200 cm should be fixed to 200 m ← Previous edit		Latest revision as of 16:42, 12 September 2024 edit undo Johnjbarton (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 18,039 edits →Mission results: add ref to intro to special issue
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Line 8: [[Image:Auroral oval.gif\|thumb\|upright=1.0\|left\|An aurora as seen by one of the Dynamics Explorers]] The Dynamics Explorer (DE) mission's general objective is to investigate the strong interactive processes coupling the hot, tenuous, convecting plasmas of the magnetosphere and the cooler, denser ~~plasmas~~plasma and ~~gases~~gasses corotating in the Earth's ionosphere, upper atmosphere, and plasmasphere. Two satellites, DE-1 and DE-2, were launched together and were placed in polar coplanar orbits, permitting simultaneous measurements at high and low altitudes in the same field-line region. The DE-1 spacecraft (high-altitude mission) uses an elliptical orbit selected to allow (1) measurements extending from the hot magnetospheric plasma through the plasmasphere to the cool ionosphere; (2) global auroral imaging, wave measurements in the heart of the magnetosphere, and crossing of auroral field lines at several Earth radii; and (3) measurements for significant periods along a magnetic field flux tube.<ref name="Display"/> == Spacecraft == Line 41: == Mission results == As a result of a malfunction in the Thor-Delta 3913 launch vehicle in which its main engine shut off slightly early, DE-2 was placed into a slightly lower orbit than was anticipated. This was not a serious problem, however, and the spacecraft had lasted its expected lifespan when it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 19 February 1983. An overview of the results from the first 5 years of the mission was published in a special edition of [[Reviews of Geophysics]].<ref>Hoffman, R. A. "The magnetosphere, ionosphere, and atmosphere as a system: Dynamics Explorer 5 years later." Reviews of Geophysics 26.2 (1988): 209-214.</ref> == Atmospheric entry ==