Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer
Illustration of FAST
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| Names | Explorer-70, SMEX-2 | ||||||||||
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| Mission type | Auroral plasma physics | ||||||||||
| Operator |
NASA / Goddard Space Sciences Laboratory |
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| COSPAR ID | 1996-049A | ||||||||||
| SATCAT № | 24285 | ||||||||||
| Website | http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/fast/ | ||||||||||
| Mission duration | Planned: 1 year Final: 12 years, 8 months, 9 days |
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| Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
| Manufacturer | NASA / Goddard | ||||||||||
| Launch mass | 191.3 kg (421.7 lb) | ||||||||||
| Payload mass | 65.3 kg (144.0 lb) | ||||||||||
| Dimensions | 1.02 × 0.93 m (3.3 × 3.1 ft) | ||||||||||
| Power | 52 W | ||||||||||
| Start of mission | |||||||||||
| Launch date | August 21, 1996, 09:47 UTC | ||||||||||
| Rocket | Pegasus XL | ||||||||||
| Launch site |
Stargazer Vandenberg AFB, California, U.S. |
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| Contractor | Orbital Sciences | ||||||||||
| End of mission | |||||||||||
| Disposal | Decommissioned | ||||||||||
| Deactivated | May 1, 2009 | ||||||||||
| Orbital parameters | |||||||||||
| Reference system | Geocentric | ||||||||||
| Regime | Low Earth | ||||||||||
| Semi-major axis | 8,300.4 km (5,157.6 mi) | ||||||||||
| Eccentricity | 0.1898 | ||||||||||
| Perigee | 346.8 km (215.5 mi) | ||||||||||
| Apogee | 3,497.8 km (2,173.4 mi) | ||||||||||
| Inclination | 82.9680° | ||||||||||
| Period | 125.4333 min | ||||||||||
| RAAN | 340.7268° | ||||||||||
| Argument of perigee | 109.0590° | ||||||||||
| Mean anomaly | 272.4924° | ||||||||||
| Mean motion | 11.4802 rev/day | ||||||||||
| Epoch | September 5, 2015, 03:48:35 UTC | ||||||||||
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| Instruments | |
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| ESA | Electrostatic Analyzers |
| TEAMS | Time-of-Flight Energy Angle Mass Spectrograph |
| Electric Field and Langmuir Probe Experiment | |
| Tri-Axial Fluxgate and Search-coil Magnetometers | |
The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) is a NASA plasma physics satellite, and is the second spacecraft in the Small Explorer program. It was launched on August 21, 1996, from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Pegasus XL rocket. The spacecraft was designed and built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Flight operations were handled by Goddard for the first three years, and thereafter were transferred to the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.
FAST was designed to observe and measure the plasma physics of the auroral phenomena which occur around both of Earth's poles. While its Electric Field Experiment failed around 2002, all other instruments continued to operate normally until science operations were ended on May 1, 2009. Various engineering tests were conducted afterward.
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