Image above: Mounted onto the STEREO Spacecraft are four instrument packages: SECCHI, SWAVES, IMPACT, and PLASTIC. Image Credit: APL
Description of STEREO Instrument Packages Mounted on Each of the Two Spacecraft
Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) has four instruments: an extreme ultraviolet imager, two white-light coronagraphs and a heliospheric imager. These instruments study the 3-D evolution of coronal mass ejections from birth at the Sun's surface, through the corona and interplanetary medium, and to their eventual impacts at Earth.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Russell Howard, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
STEREO/WAVES (SWAVES) is an interplanetary radio burst tracker that traces the generation and evolution of traveling radio disturbances from the Sun to the orbit of Earth.
Principal Investigators: Dr. Jean Louis H. Bougeret, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Observatory of Paris, and Co-Investigator Mr. Michael Kaiser of Goddard, lead the investigation.
In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) samples the 3-D distribution and provide plasma characteristics of solar energetic particles and the local vector magnetic field.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Janet G. Luhmann, University of California, Berkeley.
PLAsma and SupraThermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) provides plasma characteristics of protons, alpha particles, and heavy ions. This experiment will provide key diagnostic measurements of the form of mass and charge state composition of heavy ions and characterize the CME plasma from ambient coronal plasma.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Antoinette Galvin, University of New Hampshire.
