Geotail

 1992-044A

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Geotail's mission is to study the structure and dynamics of the geomagnetic tail at 200 Re. After 1994, it lowered its apogee to 30-50Re to study neutral line formation and magnetic reconnection during substorms in the equatorial magnetosphere region inward of lunar orbit. The spacecraft has a dry mass of 640 kg with 330 kg of propellant (prelaunch mass was 1010 kg). It is a 1.6 m high by 2.2m diameter cylinder with 6-m long masts for the magnetometers and 50-m long antennas for the EFD and PWI experiments (span 100m).

Geotail
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1992 Jul 24	1426:00	Launch by Delta II	CC LC17
		T+0:55 SRM 1-6 out
		T+1:00 SRM 7-9 on
		T+1:01 SRM 1-6 sep
		T+1:56 SRM 7-9 out
		T+2:02 SRM 7-9 sep
		T+4:24 MECO
		T+4:32 Stage 1 sep
		T+4:38 SES-1
		T+5:24 Fairing sep
	1437	SECO1 (T+10:53)	185 x 185? x 28.5
	1441	Restart (T+15:15)
	1442	SECO2 (T+15:49)
	1443	T+16:42 Delta sep	185 x 344 x 28.7
	1443	PAM-D TIG (T+17:18)
	1444	PAM-D cutoff (T+18:46)
	1446	20:38 T+PAM-D sep	13351.56 185 x 359917 x 28.7
	1446	Yo deployment T+20:41
	1520?		12354.15 184 x 341110 x 28.65
	1556:00s	Delta depletion burn	217 x 1498 x 27.45
1992 Jul 25	0610	Pass EL1:4
1992 Jul 27			170 x 352962 x 28.8
1992 Jul 28	0400	Apogee 1	34 x 353360 x 28.8
1992 Aug 2	1630	P1	1072 x 383426 x 28.6
1992 Aug 7	1630	Apogee 2	2178 x 377164 x 28.2
1992 Aug 18	1040?	Apogee 3	2450 x 417084 x 27.6
1992 Aug 24		P3	1634 x 421143 x 29.9
1992 Aug 30		A4	3043 x 420374 x 29.0
1992 Sep 5	0050	P4	4236 x 422101 x 28.3
1992 Sep 7	2030	In lunar sphere, 64440 km
1992 Sep 8	1530	Lunar flyby S1	11873 x -30033 x 22.1
1992 Sep 9	1030	Exit lunar sphere
1992 Sep 10		Distant Tail Phase	122361 x 854773 x 26.1
1992 Sep 26	1522	Apogee 5	869127 km
		TCM at deep tail
1992 Oct 14	0650	Lunar sphere inbound
	2340	S2 30900 km
1992 Oct 15	1630	Lunar sphere outbound	41482 x 555193 x 22.4
1992 Oct 18	0333	Perigee 47728 km cen	41361 x 508337 x 22.4
1992 Oct 27	0310	Apogee 6 525204 km
1992 Nov 5	0202	Perigee 46399 km	40035 x 511288 x 22.1
1992 Nov 7	1650	Lunar sphere in
1992 Nov 8	0950	S3 22073 km
1992 Nov 9	0300	Lunar sphere out	155600 x 1063185 x 22.0
1992 Dec 10	2209	Apogee 7	1189857 km
1993 Jan 9	2150	Lunar sphere in
1993 Jan 10	1050	S4 22836 km
	2330	Lunar sphere out
1993 Jan 12	1904	Perigee 7	8936 x 600954 x 21.4
1993 Jan 23	0600	Apogee 8	617873 km
1993 Feb 2	1926	Perigee	8651 x 602252 x 20.3
1993 Feb 4	1600	Lunar sphere in
1993 Feb 5	0450	S5 20688 km
	1739	Lunar sphere out
1993 Feb 8			54793 x 1042178 x 18.8
1993 Mar 7	1331	Apogee 9	95821 x 1180944 x 27.94
1993 Apr 7	1900	Lunar sphere in
1993 Apr 8	1030	S6 21760 km
1993 Apr 9	0150	Lunar sphere out	39500 x 566800 x 24.8
1993 Apr 11	0700	Perigee 9	39866 x 526273 x 24.6
1993 Apr 20	1454	Apogee 10	541319 km
1993 Apr 30	0023	Perigee 10	42391 x 523145 x 24.1
1993 May 2	0510	Lunar sphere in
	2100	S7 22306 km
1993 May 3	1300	Lunar sphere out	129600 x 1147900 x 25.3
1993 Jun 17	2125	Apogee 11	185509 x 1326333 x 24.0
		Near Earth Hill sphere (0.2Mkm short of L2)
1993 Aug 6	0130	Lunar sphere in
	2120	S8 18692 km
1993 Aug 7	1710	Lunar sphere out	33520 x 503401 x 23.8
1993 Aug 10	1152	Perigee 11	35069 x 470644 x 23.7
1993 Aug 18	0640	Apogee 12a	31964 x 475666 x 23.7
1993 Aug 25	1149	Perigee 12a	30145 x 469443 x 23.3
1993 Sep 1	0100	Lunar sphere in
1993 Sep 1	1200	Apogee 12 at 456600 km
	1320	Sx 56968 km	12194 x 456695 x 25.3
1993 Sep 2	0150	Lunar sphere out	15000 x 459500 x 25.7
1993 Sep 3	0300		23156 x 465752 x 25.4
1993 Sep 7	2333	Perigee	31477 x 469300 x 24.9
1993 Sep 15	1810	Apogee 13	482486
1993 Sep 23	1322:19	Perigee	35138 x 470022 x 20.2
1993 Sep 26	0600	Lunar sphere in
1993 Sep 27	0150	S9 19400 km
	2200	Lunar sphere out	182115 x 1110871 x 22.2
1993 Nov 15	1451	Apogee 14	133878 x 1339585 x 19.5
		0.2M km short of L2
1993 Dec 30	2000	Lunar sphere in
1993 Dec 31	1200	S10 28850 km
1994 Jan 1	0300	Lunar sphere out	41800 x 590246 x 22.4
1994 Jan 3	0900	Perigee	41783 x 588965 x 22.4
1994 Jan 14	1717	Apogee 15
1994 Jan 26	0240	Perigee	47978 x 603165 x 22.0
1994 Feb 6	0337	Apogee 16	605750
1994 Feb 17	1330	Perigee	55973 x 579850 x 21.7
1994 Feb 20	0400	Lunar sphere in
	2010	S11 27290 km
1994 Feb 21	1200	Lunar sphere out	139800 x 1175311 x 21.7
1994 Mar 15			241111 x 1196606 x 20.1
1994 Apr 29		Apogee 17 at 1.27Mkm	402382 x 1271211 x 19.3
		0.24M km short of L2
1994 Jun 28	0100	Lunar sphere in	147731 x 1141601 x 19.9
	1000	S12 56400 km
	1800	Lunar sphere out
1994 Jul 1	2120	Perigee	113637 x 773272 x 24.8
1994 Jul 23	0640	Apogee 18	147974 x 864945 x 24.8
1994 Aug 13	1240	Perigee	110150 x 771067 x 26.3
1994 Aug 16	1500	S13 Flyby 71631 km from Moon
1994 Aug 19			150342 x 1026965 x 25.9
1994 Sep 17		Apogee 19	287363 x 1122548 x 23.5
1994 Oct 24	1800	Lunar sphere in
1994 Oct 25	2120	S14 21670 km
1994 Oct 26	2300	Lunar sphere out
1994 Oct		Trans near tail phase:
		Plane change, apogee lower
1994 Oct 30	0320	Perigee	57380 x 396952 x 17.9
1994 Nov 5		Apogee 20	55022 x 400534 x 15.7
1994 Nov 12	0400	TCM	53098 x 319484 x 15.7
1994 Nov 21	0409	Perigee	49107 x 301096 x 15.7
1994 Nov 25		Apogee 21	49856 x 301273 x 15.7
1994 Dec		Near Tail Phase (8 x 30 Re x 7.5 eclip)
1995 Jan 4			50182 x 305271 x 15.7
1995 Feb 19		TCM	58871 x 251022 x 15.7
1995 Feb 20		TCM	58879 x 239019 x 15.7
1995 Feb 26		TCM	58917 x 200224 x 15.6
1995 Feb 27		TCM	58925 x 186300 x 15.7
1995 Jun 3			57072 x 188043 x 15.9
1996 Jan 1			56233 x 188363 x 16.5
1998 Jan 1			51255 x 188300 x 16.7
2000 Jan 1			52580 x 188213 x 15.3

Payload:

• CPI Comprehensive Particles Investigation, plasma studies of ion/electron velocity distribution, solar wind ions and ion mass/energy spectrum. (Frank/Iowa)

• EFD Electric Field Detector (DC to 40 kHz), spherical probe and 50-m wire antennas, ion emitter. (Tsuruta/ISAS)

• EPIC Energetic Particle and Ion Composition, studied ion mass, energy, charge state, and electron energy. (Williams/APL)