The AMPTE CCE Magnetic Field Experiment

The AMPTE CCE spacecraft carries a high-resolution Magnetic Field Experiment for the operational purpose of determining spacecraft attitude and to fulfill the scientific objectives of providing magnetic-field measurements necessary for the determination of particle pitch angles, identification of geospace boundaries, measurement of geomagnetic activity, and the study of magnetospheric current systems and plasma processes. This experiment includes a fluxgate-magnetometer system with the sensors mounted on a 2.3-m boom to reduce spacecraft-related measurement errors. Te experiment has 7 automatically switchable ranges from ±16 to ±65 536 nT (full scale) and resolutions commensurate with a 13-bit A/D converter in each range (±0.002-±8 nT). Approximately 8.6 vector-samples/s are acquired, with information on fluctuating fields in the 5-50-Hz range provided by a system of filters and peak detectors. This instrument was operated from the time of the launch of the CCE spacecraft and is presently working in all modes as designed. The details of this experiment and early data are presented in this paper.