The Polar spacecraft is one of four spacecraft in the Global Geospace Science(GGS) program and is also part of the ISTP program. Polar was launched on February 24, 1996 and circles Earth in a polar orbit with an apogee of 57,000 km (34,200 miles) and perigee of 11,500 km (6900 miles). The orbital period of Polar is about 16 hours. The goal of the Polar mission is to measure solar wind entry, ionospheric output, and the deposition of energy into the neutral atmosphere at high latitudes. Polar carries instruments to measure high energy particles, electric fields and magnetic fields in Earth's magnetosphere, as well as visible, ultraviolet and X-ray imagers to observe the aurora from space.

University of Minnesota Polar Nuggets

• First Global, High Latitude, Plasma Density Measurements made by the Electric Field Experiment on the POLAR Satellite
• Bipolar Wave Packets Parallel to the Magnetic Field on the Plasma Sheet Boundary
• The Discovery of Large Amplitude Solitary Waves at High Altitudes in the Cusp

Conference Presentations on Polar Research

• Coming Soon!

Papers on Polar for the JGR Special Issue on Polar

• Studies of ion solitary waves using simulations including hydrogen and oxygen beams

PAPCO Modules Available Online

• PAPCO EFI Modules

Other Polar Websites

• ISTP Polar Homepage
• Polar Electric Field Instrument Homepage
• Polar Mission Operations Home Page
• GSFC SPOF Polar Homepage
• Polar Interactive Data Server at IGPP-UCLA