Ionosphere images from Alouette satellites

Ionosphere images from Alouette satellites Designed and assembled in Canada, Alouette-1 was the first satellite built by a nation other than the United States or the Soviet Union. It was constructed at a time when most satellites had a useful lifespan of a few months. Although Alouette-1 was as complex as any previously launched satellite, rapidly advancing technology and the extreme care exercised in all phases of Alouette-1’s development had led the Canadian builders to expect that their satellite would operate for at least 1 year. However, Alouette-1 operated for 10 years. In its first 3 months of operation, Alouette-1 produced some of the most exciting data obtained during the entire 50-year history of ionospheric research, and it continued to provide valuable information until its 10th birthday. Alouette-1 is best known for its swept-frequency topside sounder experiment. The other experiments (VLF, cosmic noise, and energetic particle measurements) were, however, equally successful, and they also remained operational for 10 years. The Alouette-1 mission resulted in over 300 publications in refereed scientific journals. About 80 percent of Alouette-1 publications were based on the ionograms obtained from the topside sounder experiment. In its first 3 years of operation, Alouette-1 obtained over a million ionograms, each equivalent to a snapshot of the ionosphere from the Alouette-1 altitude of 1000 km down to an altitude of about 300 km. These ionograms have provided data at all geomagnetic latitudes and at geographic latitudes ranging from 80° N to 80° S. After 10 years, Alouette-1 had produced 2 million ionograms. 2021-10-05 Canadian Space Agency asc.gouvernementouvert-opengovernment.csa@canada.ca Science and TechnologyAlouetteSatelliteIonogramsIonosphere Ionosphere images from Alouette satellites - DatasetPNG https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Data specifications Alouette-IDOCX https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Data specifications Alouette-IDOCX https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Alouette 1 data restorationDOCX https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Alouette 1 data restorationDOCX https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Reference SheetXLSX https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ Reference SheetCSV https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/ MicrofichesJPG https://data.asc-csa.gc.ca/users/OpenData_DonneesOuvertes/pub/AlouetteData/

Designed and assembled in Canada, Alouette-1 was the first satellite built by a nation other than the United States or the Soviet Union. It was constructed at a time when most satellites had a useful lifespan of a few months. Although Alouette-1 was as complex as any previously launched satellite, rapidly advancing technology and the extreme care exercised in all phases of Alouette-1’s development had led the Canadian builders to expect that their satellite would operate for at least 1 year. However, Alouette-1 operated for 10 years. In its first 3 months of operation, Alouette-1 produced some of the most exciting data obtained during the entire 50-year history of ionospheric research, and it continued to provide valuable information until its 10th birthday. Alouette-1 is best known for its swept-frequency topside sounder experiment. The other experiments (VLF, cosmic noise, and energetic particle measurements) were, however, equally successful, and they also remained operational for 10 years. The Alouette-1 mission resulted in over 300 publications in refereed scientific journals. About 80 percent of Alouette-1 publications were based on the ionograms obtained from the topside sounder experiment. In its first 3 years of operation, Alouette-1 obtained over a million ionograms, each equivalent to a snapshot of the ionosphere from the Alouette-1 altitude of 1000 km down to an altitude of about 300 km. These ionograms have provided data at all geomagnetic latitudes and at geographic latitudes ranging from 80° N to 80° S. After 10 years, Alouette-1 had produced 2 million ionograms.

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