The Plasma Wave Instrument on Board the AMPTE IRM Satellite

The AMPTE IRM plasma wave instrumentation is designed to provide basic information on the plasma wave activity in the magnetosphere/solar-wind environment and inside the artificial plasma clouds which will be created in space. The instruments use one long electric dipole antenna and two magnetic search coil sensors in order to cover frequency ranges from dc to 5.6 MHz for the electric measurements and from about 30 Hz to 1.5 MHz for the magnetic measurements. A set of spectrum analyzers along with a fast memory and an analog wide-band system are used to determine wave intensities and to identify wave modes.