IMP 8 UMD EECA: 10.92-Minute Ion and Electron Flux Rates

IMP 8 satellite data from the University of Maryland's Electrostatic Energy-Charge Analyzer (EECA) instrument provides count rates and pulse height data. The dataset enables computation of 10.92-minute resolution fluxes for singly and doubly ionized ions, ions with higher charge states, and 600-860 keV electrons. It was created at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) from summary tapes provided by the University of Maryland.

Use Cases

• Modeling solar wind composition based on ion charge state distributions described in the data.
• Studying anisotropy in particle fluxes based on spin-integrated and spin-quadrant data.
• Analyzing temporal evolution of energetic electron populations in the 600-860 keV energy range.
• Investigating the relationship between ion energy per charge (keV/Q) and solar activity.

Strengths

• Provides high temporal resolution fluxes at 10.92-minute intervals.
• Contains data for multiple particle types across specified energy/charge windows.
• Includes spin-resolved data in 90-degree quadrants for some measurement modes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data from the ULET instrument portion was dropped after its failure in 1978.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC).

Collection Method

Created from University of Maryland-provided 'summary tapes' (NSSDC IDs SPHE-00170 and 73-078A 03C) by converting binary data to ASCII.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:50:11.168820; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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