FAST Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer spacecraft
NASA's second Small Explorer, FAST was launched on 21 August 1996 into a highly inclined elliptical orbit to investigate auroral acceleration and plasma microphysics with high-resolution electric and magnetic-field sensors and particle instruments. Science acquisition ended after orbit 51315 on 30 April 2009.
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Identity
- Aliases
- FASTFast Auroral Snapshot ExplorerFAST SMEXFast Auroral Snapshot
- Family Name
- FAST
- Full Name
- FAST Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer spacecraft
- Roles
- orbiterobservatoryresearch
- Status
- retired
- Type
- spacecraft
Details
- Description
- NASA's second Small Explorer, FAST was launched on 21 August 1996 into a highly inclined elliptical orbit to investigate auroral acceleration and plasma microphysics with high-resolution electric and magnetic-field sensors and particle instruments. Science acquisition ended after orbit 51315 on 30 April 2009.
- First Flight Year
- 1,996
- Last Flight Year
- 2,009
- Operator
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/fast/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 13, 2026 at 13:44:24 UTC
- Updated Time
- August 23, 2026 at 09:43:02 UTC
- Image
- Download