The main scientific objectives of the Soviet-French ARCAD-3 Project on
the AUREOL-3 near-Earth satellite (1981-1986) were to study
magnetospheric plasma processes including measurements of auroral
particles, electromagnetic fields, thermal plasma variations, auroral
field-aligned currents and related auroral emissions. The satellite
measurements were often coordinated with ground-based measurements of
magnetospheric phenomena, which helped in the analysis of the
time/space development of the observed phenomena.
SATELLITE NAME: AUREOL-3 (AURora and EOLe)
AUOS-Z (Automatic Universal Orbital Station).
LAUNCH : September 21, 1981, Plesetsk, Russia.
Total mass: 1200 kg, payload ~ 250 kg.
Velocity - oriented, gravity-gradient stabilized.
ORBIT : ha = 2012 km, hp = 408 km, i = 82.5 degrees.
AIM : Magnetosphere-ionosphere research.
PROJECT SCIENTIST: Yuri I.Galperin, Space Research Institute (IKI) of Russian Academy of Sciences.
PROJECT SCIENTIST: Henri Reme, Centre d'Etudes Spatiales des
Rayonnements (CESR), Toulouse, France;
Principal Investigators and Scientific Institutes
Short Descriptions of Instruments
Back to the Space Plasma Physics Home Page