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International Cometary Explorer (ICE)
This spacecraft was launched in 1978 as the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE), third in a series of Explorer-class missions to investigate details of the interactions between the Sun (and solar wind) and the Earth's magnetosphere. The spacecraft carried instruments to measure plasmas, energetic particles, waves and fields. This last mission in the series was launched into a heliocentric orbit at the L1 Lagrangian libration point 235 Earth radii on the sunward side of Earth.
In 1982 the spacecraft was renamed the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) and, through a complex series of Earth and Moon flybys, was sent on a trajectory to intercept comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. The primary objective of the ICE mission was to study the interaction between the solar wind and the cometary atmosphere. The ICE made particle, field and plasma measurements as it passed through the plasma tail of 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, then continued on to pass between the Sun and comet 1P/Halley in late March 1986 as other missions (Giotto, VEGA, Planet-A, MS-T5) were also observing that comet. Spacecraft operations were terminated in May 1997.
The SBN leads the effort to restore and archive data from the ICE mission into the PDS.
Instruments
- Instrument Details (Data from these instruments are archived at SBN.)
- Energetic Particle Anisotropy Spectrometer (EPAS)
- Ion Composition Instrument (ICI)
- Vector Helium Magnetometer (MAG)
- Plasma Wave Spectrum Analyzer (PLAWAV)
- Radio Mapping of Solar Wind Disturbances (RADWAV)
- Solar Wind Plasma (SWPLAS)
- Ultralow-energy charge analyzer (ULECA)
- Other Instruments (Spacecraft has other instruments, data from which are archived at another PDS node.)
- Ultralow-energy charge analyzer (ULECA) - Ions in the 3-560 KeV/charge range
- Ultralow-energy wide-angle telescope (ULEWAT) - Ions in the 0.2-80 MeV/nucleon range
- Ultralow-energy Z, E, and Q (ULEZEQ) - Ions in the 0.4-6 MeV/nucleon range
- Medium Energy Cosmic Rays - Solar and galactic cosmic rays
- High-Energy Cosmic Rays - Isotopic abundances in primary cosmic rays for H through Ni
- Cosmic-Ray Energy Spectrum - Particle propagation within the solar system and properties of the interplanetary medium
- Interplanetary and Solar Electrons - Spectra and anisotropies of interplanetary and solar electrons in the transition energy range between solar wind and low-energy cosmic rays
- Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer - Isotopic constitution of solar matter and galactic cosmic-ray sources, nucleosynthesis, and astrophysical particle acceleration
- X-ray and Gamma-ray Bursts - Solar-flare X-rays and transient cosmic gamma-ray bursts
- Gamma-ray Bursts - High-resolution spectra of gamma-ray burst photons between 0.05 and 6.5 MeV
Data Sets
21P/Giacobini-Zinner
- ICE Energetic Particle Anisotropy Spectrometer
- ICE Ion Composition Instrument
- ICE Magnetometer
- ICE Plasma Wave Experiment - Electronic Field Measurement
- ICE Plasma Wave Experiment - Magnetic Field Measurement
- ICE Radio Wave Detector
- ICE Solar Wind Plasma Experiment
- ICE Ultra-Low Energy Charge Analyzer
Other Target Observations
Related Datasets
Use the Small Bodies Data Ferret to find other datasets for this mission/target.
