Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer
Encyclopedia
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base, located approximately northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command ....
on board a Pegasus XL rocket on August 21, 1996. One in the series of NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Small Explorer
Small Explorer program
The Small Explorer program is an effort within NASA to fund space exploration missions that cost no more than $120 million.- Program history :...
(SMEX) spacecraft, FAST was designed to observe and measure the plasma physics of the auroral
Aurora (astronomy)
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere...
phenomena which occur around both pole
Geographical pole
A geographical pole is either of the two points—the north pole and the south pole—on the surface of a rotating planet where the axis of rotation meets the surface of the body...
s of the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. It is operated by the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
's Space Sciences Laboratory
Space Sciences Laboratory
The Space Sciences Laboratory is an Organized Research Unit of the University of California, Berkeley. It is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus...
.
The explorer was launched few days before the launch of the Interball aurora probe, whose objective was to study the aurora processes in conjunction with another probe located in the magnetotail.
FAST supported the THEMIS
Themis
Themis is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as "of good counsel", and is the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "divine law" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb τίθημι, títhēmi, "to put"...
mission in 2008 and 2009.
Normal operations ended on May 1st 2009. After that, some limited operations and engineering tests continued.
Sources
- http://sunland.gsfc.nasa.gov/smex/fast/mission/
- http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1996-049A NSSDC 1996-049A
- http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/F/FAST.html