The IMAGE mission and first observations from the radio plasma imager

The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) mission is NASA's first satellite mission designed to image Earth's magnetosphere using remote sensing techniques. Extreme and far ultraviolet (EUV, FUV), energetic neutral atom (ENA), and radio plasma (RPI) imagers are mapping the aurora, the helium ions of the plasmasphere, the plasma sheet and polar cusp, and the total plasma distribution from the ionosphere to the magnetopause. IMAGE was launched on 25 March 2000 into an elliptical polar orbit with an altitude of 7 R/sub E/ at apogee and 1000 km at perigee. First observations obtained by RPI in the sounding and relaxation mode are reported.