AMPTE

Class: Earth. Type: Magnetosphere. Destination: High Earth Orbit. Nation: USA. Agency: NASA(Ampte 1).

Charge Composition Explorer; detected tracer ions released into magnetosphere by IRM.

Typical orbit: 767 x 70231 km, 21.9 deg inclinaton. Associated Launch Vehicle: Delta 3000.

AMPTE Chronology

1984 August 16 - CCE-1 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Vehicle: Delta 3000. Mass: 242 kg (533 lb). Perigee: 1,121 km (696 mi). Apogee: 49,671 km (30,864 mi). Inclination: 4.80 deg. Period: 939.50 min.
Charge Composition Explorer; detected tracer ions released into magnetosphere by IRM. Spacecraft engaged in research and exploration of the upper atmosphere or outer space (US Cat B).

1984 August 16 - AMPTE 2 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Vehicle: Delta 3000. Mass: 605 kg (1,333 lb). Perigee: 402 km (249 mi). Apogee: 113,818 km (70,723 mi). Inclination: 27.00 deg. Period: 2,653.40 min.
Released barium, lithium ions into magnetosphere for detection by CCE, UKS. AMPTE-Ion Release Module, reg. no. D-R 002. Scientific research on the Earth's magnetosphere and plasma physics, in particular active experimentation by releasing ion clouds of lithium or barium (total of 7) in and outside the magnetosphere. Creation of a n artificial comet (1 barium cloud inside the magnetosheath). Diagnosis and experimentation in conjunction with the simultaneously launched satellites CCE (United States) and UKS (United Kingdom).

1984 August 16 - AMPTE 3 - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Vehicle: Delta 3000. Mass: 77 kg (169 lb). Perigee: 1,002 km (622 mi). Apogee: 113,417 km (70,473 mi). Inclination: 26.90 deg. Period: 2,659.60 min.
Detected tracer ions released into magnetosphere by IRM. Magnetosphere research satellite. Launch time 1447 GMT. (Document quotes geocentric distances, which have been converted to orbital heights.)

1984 August 16 - Solar Cell Experiment - Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Vehicle: Delta 3000. Perigee: 546 km (340 mi). Apogee: 4,019 km (2,497 mi). Inclination: 28.92 deg. Period: 133.62 min.

Bibliography and Further Reading

JPL Mission and Spacecraft Library, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1997. Accessed at: http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/home.html.

McDowell, Jonathan, Launch Log, October 1998. Jonathan McDowell's complete on-line listing of all objects orbited since Sputnik. Accessed at: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/log/launch.html.

Krebs, Gunter, Gunter's Space Page, University of Frankfurt, 1996. Accessed at: http://www.skyrocket.de/space.

McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Home Page, Harvard University, 1997-present. Jonathan McDowell's complete on-line listing of all objects orbited and over 20,000 rocket launches Accessed at: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html.

USAF Satellite Database, USAF Institute of Technology, 1995. Accessed at: ftp://archive.afit.af.mil/pub/space/.

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