Ionosphere images from Alouette satellites

Designed and assembled in Canada, Alouette-1 was the first satellite built by a nation other than the United States or the Soviet Union. It was constructed at a time when most satellites had a useful lifespan of a few months. Although Alouette-1 was as complex as any previously launched satellite, rapidly advancing technology and the extreme care exercised in all phases of Alouette-1’s development had led the Canadian builders to expect that their satellite would operate for at least 1 year. However, Alouette-1 operated for 10 years. In its first 3 months of operation, Alouette-1 produced some of the most exciting data obtained during the entire 50-year history of ionospheric research, and it continued to provide valuable information until its 10th birthday. Alouette-1 is best known for its swept-frequency topside sounder experiment. The other experiments (VLF, cosmic noise, and energetic particle measurements) were, however, equally successful, and they also remained operational for 10 years. The Alouette-1 mission resulted in over 300 publications in refereed scientific journals. About 80 percent of Alouette-1 publications were based on the ionograms obtained from the topside…

Publisher

Canadian Space Agency

Resources

5

Catalogue metadata updated

2024-02-23