Sun  ID: 3394

THEMIS Orbits: Transitions

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on December 14, 2006
Between the dayside and nightside phases of the mission, the five spacecraft will conduct orbit change maneuvers over a period of three months. During this visualization, the camera position is locked in GSE coordinates, keeping the Sun to the left. The orbital axis is actually fixed in space but appears to move due to the Earth's motion around the Sun. The dates in this visualization are based on an ephemeris assuming a launch on January 20, 2007. The satellites are represented by the colors: red=P1, green=P2, cyan=P3, blue=P4, magenta=P5.
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This movie illustrates the three months of orbital maneuvers which transition the five satellites from their dayside science to nightside science configuration.
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This movie is the same as above with no date stamp.
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The five THEMIS spacecraft still in their dayside orbital configuration.
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This image is the same as above with no date stamp.
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The orbital changes begin. P1 is in the first phase of raising its apogee.
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This image is the same as above with no date stamp.
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P1 boosts its apogee even higher.
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This image is the same as above with no date stamp.
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P5 is still in a high orbit.
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This image is the same as above with no date stamp.
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P5 lowers its apogee to sample the space near the Earth.
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This image is the same as above with no date stamp.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Vassilis Angelopoulos (University of California at Berkeley): Scientist
David G. Sibeck (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3394

Mission:
THEMIS

Data Used:
SSCweb also referred to as: SSCweb ephemerides
Ephemeris - NASA/GSFC Space Physics Data Facility - 2008/09/07T00:00:00 - 2007/12/20T01:00:00
Satellite ephemerides
view all stories where this data set is used
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.

This item is part of this series:
THEMIS Pre-launch

Keywords:
SVS >> Geomagnetic Field
SVS >> Magnetosphere
SVS >> Solar Wind
SVS >> THEMIS
NASA Science >> Sun