Abstract NASA Flight 29.015 was the third in a series of flights to study the electrodynamics of man-produced ion beams in the ionosphere. Much like an earlier flight, plasma releases perpendicular to the earth's B field result in ions being measured, often at reduced energies, several hundred meters from the source along the magnetic field. Releases at 200 eV energy parallel to B , however, result in > 200 eV ions measured above the source. In addition, parallel ion releases result in two additional populations of ions seen near 90° pitch angle; one near the energy of the generator, and the other at considerably lower energy. The energization of parallel ions could result from the same process by which electrons were accelerated to the generator payload as measured on an earlier flight, presumably due to blockage of natural field-aligned currents by gun-related wave turbulence. This turbulence is also undoubtedly inherent in the mechanism by which a parallel beam of ions creates a perpendicular component.


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    Title :

    Ion beam releases at rocket altitudes


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    1988-01-01


    Size :

    4 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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