Dynamics Explorer: Difference between revisions

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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
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[[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 plasmasplasma and gasesgasses 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 ==