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Subsections

• Magnetometer
• Ion spectrometer
• Electron spectrometer
• Plasma wave spectrometer
• Particle Correlator

Instruments

Magnetometer

This was supplied by Imperial College London and the University of California, Los Angeles. It was a boom-mounted vector fluxgate measuring over frequencies from DC to 10Hz (sampling resolution up to one-sixteenth of a second). The instrument operated in either of two ranges: (a) at lower sensitivity with a range of $\pm 8192$nT and an accuracy of $\pm 1$nT; (b) at higher sensitivity with a range of $\pm 256$nT and an accuracy of $\pm 0.03$nT.

Details are available in the following paper:

• D J Southwood et al., The fluxgate magnetometer for the AMPTE UK subsatellite, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(3), May 1985, 301-304.

Ion spectrometer

This was supplied by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The instrument used twin electrostatic analysers to measure the ion distribution over the energy range from 10 eV/q to 20 keV/q. It could be commanded to operate in a variety of modes: (i) to measure the solar-wind distribution (SW data), which is beam-like because ion thermal velocities are generally less than the bulk velocity of the solar wind; (ii) to measure the full three-dimensional ion distribution (FTR or ``fast time resolution" data), which is more suitable for the hot plasma in the magnetosphere where flow velocities are small; (iii) to apply these two modes in alternate spins (e.g. for measurements in the boundary layer). The instrument had sufficient resolution to be able to make any of these different measurements within a spin period. Full details are available in the following paper:

• A J Coates et al., The AMPTE UKS three-dimensional ion experiment, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(3), May 1985, 287-292.

Electron spectrometer

This was supplied by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. This instrument used twin electrostatic analysers to measure the electron distribution over the energy range from 6 eV to 25 keV. It could be commanded to operate in a variety of modes, e.g. (i) a full energy scan from 12 eV to 25 keV in one second; (ii) scans from 12 eV to 25 keV and from 12 to 680 eV in alternate seconds. Unlike for the ions, there is no problem of resolving the solar-wind electron distribution since electron thermal velocities are generally higher than the bulk solar-wind velocity. Full details are available in the following paper:

• H M Shah et al., The electron experiment on AMPTE UKS, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(3), May 1985, 293-300.

Plasma wave spectrometer

This was supplied by the University of Sheffield, the University of Sussex and British Antarctic Survey. This instrument used a 7 metre tip-to-tip probe to measure electric fields over the frequency range 30Hz to 132 kHz and a boom-mounted search coil to measure magnetic fields over the frequency range 30Hz to 50 kHz. No data are available from the search coil. The instrument could be commanded to operate in a variety of modes. These and other details are available in the following paper:

• A G Darbyshire et al., The UKS wave experiment, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(3), May 1985, 311-314.

Particle Correlator

This was supplied by the University of Sussex. It operated by signal processing of the count rates from the ion and electron spectrometers. Full details are available in the following paper:

• M P Gough, The spacecraft particle correlator experiment for the AMPTE UKS, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(3), May 1985, 305-310.

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