The STEREO Observatory

Driesman, Andrew; Hynes, S.; Cancro, George J.

doi:10.1007/s11214-007-9286-z

Cited by 42 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…2 shows the "behind" spacecraft with the instrument locations indicated. The spacecraft themselves are relatively small, with a combined mass of about 1,280 kg, including maneuvering fuel (see Dreisman et al 2007). There are very slight differences between the Ahead and Behind spacecraft, mainly due to the fact that the spacecraft fly upside down relative to one another so that their high-gain antenna is always on the Earth-facing side of the spacecraft.…”

Section: • Stereo/waves (S/waves) Was Built By a Team Led By Jean-loumentioning

confidence: 99%

The STEREO Mission: An Introduction

et al. 2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The twin STEREO spacecraft were launched on October 26, 2006, at 00:52 UT from Kennedy Space Center aboard a Delta 7925 launch vehicle. After a series of highly eccentric Earth orbits with apogees beyond the moon, each spacecraft used close flybys of the moon to escape into orbits about the Sun near 1 AU. Once in heliospheric orbit, one spacecraft trails Earth while the other leads. As viewed from the Sun, the two spacecraft separate at approximately 44 to 45 degrees per year. The purposes of the STEREO Mission are to understand the causes and mechanisms of coronal mass ejection (CME) initiation and to follow the propagation of CMEs through the inner heliosphere to Earth. Researchers will use STEREO measurements to study the mechanisms and sites of energetic particle acceleration and to develop three-dimensional (3-D) time-dependent models of the magnetic topology, temperature, density and velocity of the solar wind between the Sun and Earth. To accomplish these goals, each STEREO spacecraft is equipped with an almost identical set of optical, radio and in situ particles and fields instruments provided by U.S. and European investigators. The SECCHI suite of instruments includes two white light coronagraphs, an extreme ultraviolet imager and two heliospheric white light imagers which track CMEs out to 1 AU. The IMPACT suite of instruments measures in situ solar wind electrons, energetic electrons, protons and heavier ions. IMPACT also includes a magnetometer to measure the in situ magnetic field strength and direction. The PLASTIC instrument measures the composition of heavy ions in the ambient plasma as well as protons and alpha particles. The S/WAVES instrument uses radio waves to track the location of CME-driven shocks and the 3-D topology of open field lines along which flow particles produced by solar flares. Each of the four instrument packages produce a small real-time stream of selected data for purposes of predicting space weather events at Earth. NOAA forecasters at the Space Environment

show abstract

Section: • Stereo/waves (S/waves) Was Built By a Team Led By Jean-loumentioning

confidence: 99%

The STEREO Mission: An Introduction

et al. 2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Correspondingly, STEREO-B has a longer orbital period than Earth and thus lags Earth with a similar drift rate. Note that the drift rates vary throughout the mission (Driesman, Hynes, and Cancro, 2008).…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the likely passage of solar minimum during the summer of 2008 suggests the imminent onset of solar cycle 24. Manually cataloged coronal mass ejection (CME) data (Yashiro et al, 2004) from solar cycle 23, observed by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) (Brueckner et al, 1995) experiment onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) (Domingo, Fleck, and Poland, 1995), suggests that once the solar cycle begins we can expect a rapid increase in the number of partial and full halo CMEs. Such CMEs are typically considered important drivers of space weather as they can trigger geomagnetic storms (Gosling, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometric Localization of CMEs in 3D Space Using STEREO Beacon Data: First Results

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The geometric localization technique (Pizzo and Biesecker, Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, 21802, 2004) can readily be used with Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Space Weather Beacon data to observe coronal mass ejection (CME) propagation within three-dimensional space in near-real time. This technique is based upon simple triangulation concepts and utilizes a series of lines of sight from two space-based observatories to determine gross characteristics of CMEs, such as location and velocity. Since this work is aimed at space weather applications, the emphasis is on use of COR2 coronagraph data, which has a field of view from 2.5R to 15R ; this spatial coverage allows us to observe the early temporal development of a CME, and hence to calculate its velocity, even for very fast CMEs. We apply this technique to highly-compressed COR2 beacon images for several CMEs at various spacecraft separation angles: 21 August 2007, when the separation angle between the two spacecraft was 26°; 31 December 2007 and 2 January 2008, when the separation angle was 44°; and 17 October 2008, when the spacecraft separation was 79°. We present results on the speed and direction of propagation for these events and discuss the error associated with this technique. We also compare our results to the two-dimensional plane-of-sky speeds calculated from STEREO and SOHO.

show abstract

“…The attitude of the STEREO spacecraft is controlled by a combination of the SECCHI Guide Telescope, the star tracker, and the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) (Driesman, Hynes, and Cancro, 2008). The primary sun pointing information comes from the Guide Telescope, which is co-mounted with COR1, COR2, and EUVI on the same optical bench, while the star tracker and IMU mainly control the spacecraft roll.…”

Section: Pointing Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Radiometric and Pointing Calibration of SECCHI COR1 on STEREO

Thompson

Reginald

2008

Sol Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

COR1 is the innermost coronagraph of the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) instrument suite aboard the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft. The paired COR1 telescopes observe the whitelight K-corona from 1.4 to 4 solar radii in a waveband 22.5 nm wide centered on the Hα line at 656 nm. An internal polarizer allows the measurement of both total and polarized brightness. The co-alignment of the two COR1 telescopes is derived from the star λ Aquarii for the Ahead spacecraft, and from an occultation of the Sun by the Moon for Behind. Observations of the planet Jupiter are used to establish absolute photometric calibrations for each telescope. The intercalibration of the two COR1 telescopes are compared using coronal mass ejection observations made early in the mission, when the spacecraft were close together. Comparisons are also made with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) C2 and Mauna Loa Solar Observatory Mk4 coronagraphs.

show abstract

The STEREO Observatory

Cited by 42 publications

References 2 publications

The STEREO Mission: An Introduction

The STEREO Mission: An Introduction

Geometric Localization of CMEs in 3D Space Using STEREO Beacon Data: First Results

The Radiometric and Pointing Calibration of SECCHI COR1 on STEREO

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About