The 2015 Earth-Orbiting Heliophysics Fleet

  • Released Wednesday, June 10, 2015
  • Updated Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 4:18PM
  • ID: 4288

Movie showing the heliosphysics missions from near Earth orbit out to the orbit of the Moon.
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.

There've been a few changes since the 2013 Earth-Orbiting Heliophysics Fleet. As of Spring of 2015, here's a tour of the NASA Near-Earth Heliophysics fleet, covering the space from near-Earth orbit out to the orbit of the Moon.

The satellite orbits are color coded for their observing program:

  • Magenta: TIM (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere) observations

  • Yellow: solar observations and imagery

  • Cyan: Geospace and magnetosphere

  • Violet: Heliospheric observations

Near-Earth Fleet:

  • Hinode: Observes the Sun in multiple wavelengths up to x-rays. SVS page
  • RHESSI : Observes the Sun in x-rays and gamma-rays. SVS page
  • TIMED: Studies the upper layers (40-110 miles up) of the Earth's atmosphere.
  • CINDI: Measures interactions of neutral and charged particles in the ionosphere.
  • SORCE: Monitors solar intensity across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
  • AIM: Images and measures noctilucent clouds. SVS page
  • Van Allen Probes: Two probes moving along the same orbit designed to study the impact of space weather on Earth's radiation belts. SVS page
  • TWINS: Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers (TWINS) are two probes observing the Earth with neutral atom imagers.
  • IRIS: Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph is designed to take high-resolution spectra and images of the region between the solar photosphere and solar atmosphere.

Geosynchronous Fleet:

  • SDO: Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps the Sun under continuous observation at 16 megapixel resolution.

Geospace Fleet:

Lunar Orbiting Fleet:

  • ARTEMIS: Two of the THEMIS satellites were moved into lunar orbit to study the interaction of the Earth's magnetosphere with the Moon.

Major changes with earlier versions:
  • MMS added
  • GOES satellites removed
  • Cluster satellites removed
  • Camera moves around the night-side of Earth
    • .

Movie showing the heliosphysics missions from near Earth orbit out to the orbit of the Moon. This version shows the time of the orbit positions.

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Close-up view of the near-Earth heliophysics satellites.

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Pulling out from Earth for a wider view...

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Moving out further, we see SDO as we pass geosynchronous orbit.

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A view including TWINS, the Van Allen Probes, and SDO.

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The early phase of the MMS mission comes into view.

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Here we see many of the missions occupy the region inside Earth's magnetosphere.

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Passing the orbit of the Moon, we see the ARTEMIS spacecraft in lunar orbit.

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All done!

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High-resolution 5x3 Hyperwall version

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, the NASA/Goddard Satellite Situation Center, and Space Track.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

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Datasets used in this visualization

Space-Track TLE (A.K.A. Space-Track Two-Line Elements)
Ephemeris | NORAD

Satellite ephemerides

Dataset can be found at: http://Space-Track.org

See more visualizations using this data set
SSCweb ephemerides (A.K.A. SSCweb)
Ephemeris | NASA/GSFC Space Physics Data Facility

Satellite ephemerides

Dataset can be found at: http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov

See more visualizations using this data set

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

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