IMP Charged Particle Measurement Experiment
at Fundamental Technologies
Fundamental Technologies CPME Project Background
The CPME (Charged Particle Measurement Experiment) on the IMP 8 spacecraft has been operating successfully for the past 24 years. It is one of the many measurement instruments onboard IMP 8. The combined data sets generated by CPME and EPE (Energetic Particle Experiment) have been used to address a wide range of scientific problems. These include studies of energetic particle activity in and around the Earth's magnetosphere, solar energetic particle events, solar X-rays, shock accelerated ions and electrons in the interplanetary medium and near Earth's bow shock, iron group ions in high speed solar wind streams, the intensity gradients of galactic cosmic rays, and dynamical chaos in the magnetosphere.
The Fundamental Technologies IMP 8 project's primary goal has been to process low energy and high energy proton flux data obtained from the IMP 8 spacecraft. The data were used for the research conducted by Dr. Thomas Armstrong and Dr. Moncef Boufaida (of the University of Kansas) to establish the universal and general characteristics of the behavior of low and high (0.3 - 5 MeV) energy protons at the beginning of the IMP 8 project. Over the years data produced and maintained at FT (formerly at the Univ. of Kansas) has become a reference data set for other research. The data is available to any researchers who are interested.
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Updated 8/8/19, Cameron Crane
QUICK FACTS
Destination: The IMP-8 spacecraft spends roughly half of its 12-day orbit in solar winds, with the other half spent studying the magnetosphere and magnetosheath of Earth.
Orbit: The IMP-8 spacecraft orbits in a geocentric elliptical orbit with an inclination varying from 0 to 55 degrees.