Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer

The SAMPEX satellite was launched in July, 1992 into a low earth orbit at an altitude of 520 by 670 km and 82 degrees inclination. The satellite, which has exceeded its expected 3 year lifetime by almost a decade, has primarily operated in a 3-axis stabilized mode but has also been spun for limited periods. The satellite carries four instruments designed to measure the radiation environment of the earth's magnetosphere. These instruments include the Heavy Ion Large Area Proportional Counter Telescope (HILT), the Low Energy Ion Composition Analyzer (LICA), the Mass Spectrometer Telescope (MAST), and the Proton/Electron Telescope (PET). The MAST instrument measures the isotopic composition of elements from Li(Z=3) to Ni(Z=283) with energy from 10 to several hundred MeV/nucleon. http://lasp.colorado.edu/sampex/sampex.html