MMS 1 Fast Plasma Investigation: Ion Distribution Moments at 0.15-Second Burst Resolution

NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission provides plasma data from its Fast Plasma Instrument (FPI). This Level 2 product contains integrated moments of ion phase space distributions, derived from Dual Ion Spectrometer (DIS) data at burst mode resolution of 150 milliseconds. The dataset includes instrument state annotations and is updated as recently as March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling magnetospheric plasma dynamics based on high-resolution ion distribution moments.
• Analyzing instrument performance and calibration states based on included system annotation data.
• Correlating plasma parameters with other mission data based on precise 0.15-second timestamps.

Strengths

• Data is provided by NASA, an authoritative source for space science.
• Contains high-temporal-resolution burst mode data at 150 milliseconds.
• Includes instrument state annotations to augment standard moment calculations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Not all burst resolution data are downlinked per mission design.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measured by the Fast Plasma Instrument's Dual Ion Spectrometer aboard the MMS 1 spacecraft.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated in the input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:35:31.007940; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Spatial coverage is magnetospheric, focusing on the Mission Region of Interest.