Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer
FAST was NASA's second Small Explorer mission, designed to resolve the rapid plasma processes that accelerate particles above Earth's auroral regions. Its particle analyzers, electric-field sensors, and magnetic-field instruments captured high-rate measurements while the spacecraft crossed the zones where the northern and southern lights are energized.
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Identity
- Aliases
- FASTExplorer 70
- Name
- Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer
- Slug
- fast-auroral-snapshot-explorer
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- FAST was NASA's second Small Explorer mission, designed to resolve the rapid plasma processes that accelerate particles above Earth's auroral regions. Its particle analyzers, electric-field sensors, and magnetic-field instruments captured high-rate measurements while the spacecraft crossed the zones where the northern and southern lights are energized.
- End Date
- 2009-04-30
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- FAST reached its highly inclined elliptical orbit and returned more than twelve years of detailed particle and field observations of auroral acceleration and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. The spacecraft's science-data acquisition ended after orbit 51315 on April 30, 2009.
- Program
- Small Explorer
- Start Date
- 1996-08-21
- Vehicle Families
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/fast/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- July 18, 2026 at 17:17:50 UTC
- Updated Time
- July 18, 2026 at 17:17:50 UTC
Other
- Affiliations
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles