MMS HPCA: Magnetospheric Ion Composition Data at 0.625-Second Resolution

Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) data from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission measures the energy and composition of magnetospheric plasmas. The Level 2 survey data provides arrays of counts for five ion species across 63 energy levels and 16 azimuths, captured every 0.625 seconds. This dataset was produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated on March 13, 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling magnetospheric plasma dynamics based on high-temporal-resolution ion measurements.
• Analyzing the relative abundance of ion species (H+, He++, He+, O+) in space plasmas.
• Studying energy distribution of ions from 1 eV to 40 keV across different spatial orientations.
• Correlating plasma composition data with other MMS instrument measurements for multi-scale analysis.

Strengths

• Data captures five distinct ion species (protons, alpha particles, helium ions, singly charged oxygen, and background).
• High temporal resolution with measurements taken every 0.625 seconds.
• Provides multi-dimensional measurements across 63 energy levels and 16 azimuthal directions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in a BIN format, which may require specialized tools for access and parsing.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) instruments on the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:27:59.732239; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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