Image

Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration

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General

Designation	26113 / 00017A
Launch date	25 Mar 2000
Country of origin	United States
Mission	Scientific: magnetosphere study
Perigee/Apogee	1000/44647 km
Inclination	variable from 40° to 90°
Period	13.5 h
Launch vehicle	Delta #277

The Image mission will use three dimensional imaging techniques to study the global response of the Earth's magnetosphere to variations in the magnetic activity of the Sun. It will be the first satellite that will take pictures of the magnetosphere as it changes shape.

The satellite is part of NASA's Midex program. It costs $40 million

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External resources

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/

sat-index articles

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End of life

Out of service	late 2005?
Cause	Power failure, then declared a failure after reboot in 2007 But in 2018, contact was rediscovered with telemetry on
Decay

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	Lockheed Martin
Platform	LM100
Mass at launch	494 kg
Mass in orbit
Dimension	2.25 m diameter x 1.52 m height
Solar array
Stabilization	spin-stabilized (0.5 rpm)
DC power	250 W
Design lifetime	2 years

The IMAGE spacecraft has 3 antennas for S-band communication with the ground: a medium-gain helix antenna and two low-gain omni-directional antennas.
Downlink rate: 2.28 Mbps (every 14.2 hours) plus a realtime transmission at 44 kbps.
Uplink rate: 2 kbps (once a week)
Communication via the Deep Space Network

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Instruments

Image carries six instruments: HENA (High Energy Neutral Atom; 10-500 keV) imager, MENA (Medium Energy Neutral Atom; 1-30 keV) imager, LENA (Low Energy Neutral Atom; 10-500 eV) imager, FUV (Far Ultra-Violet) imager, EUV (Extreme Untra-Violet) imager, and RPI (Radio Plasma Imager).

HENA, MENA, and LENA synthesize images from the arrival directions and mass/energy of each neutral particle. (The energetic neutrals form an ephemeral population when energetic ions charge-exchange with the thermal population.) FUV carries three separate detectors: WIC (Wide Angle Camera) to image aurora in a broad band and high spatial resolution (based on the UVI aboard Polar), SI (Spectroscopic Imager) to image aurora at selected wavelengths, and GEO (GEOcorona) to image overall magnetospheric hydrogen atoms. EUV images the population of He+ through the resonantly scattered solar radiation at 30.4 nm wavelength. Finally, RPI consists of a pulsed transmitter (stepped 3 kHz to 3 MHz, 134 W peak) and a receiver, backed a radial dipole of 500 m length, another orthogonal 500 m dipole, and an axial 20 m dipole, to get echoes from boundary regions in the magnetosphere.

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