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Tether Phenomena Observed in the OEDIPUS-A Experiment

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The Behavior of Systems in the Space Environment

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((NSSE,volume 245))

Abstract

The OEDIPUS-A experiment was undertaken to address three areas in basic ionospheric science: weak field-aligned dc electric fields in the auroral ionosphere; large electrostatic probes; and bistatic wave propagation. An instrumented double payload was launched on a Black Brant sounding rocket from Andøya, Norway on 30 January 1989. An electrically conducting tether between the payload halves was extended to a length of 960 m on a trajectory with an apogee of 512 km. The flight produced novel data in all three basic-science areas. It also illustrated some characteristics of the operation of tethers in space. From among the results, a number of phenomena have been selected which are of general interest regarding the behavior of large electrodynamic structures in the ionospheric plasma.

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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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James, H.G. (1993). Tether Phenomena Observed in the OEDIPUS-A Experiment. In: DeWitt, R.N., Duston, D., Hyder, A.K. (eds) The Behavior of Systems in the Space Environment. NATO ASI Series, vol 245. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2048-7_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2048-7_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4907-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2048-7

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