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 (Moore at al., 1982 and 1983; Kaufman et al., 1985), 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 over-200-eV ions measured above the source. In addition, parallel ion releases result in two additional populations of ions seen near 90-deg 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.
Ion beam releases at rocket altitudes
Advances in Space Research ; 8 , 1 19
1988-01-01
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Englisch
Ion beam releases at rocket altitudes
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