missionsHelioSCI
Heliophysics
ESA Data Ontology
Double Star
The Double Star Program (DSP) is the first mission in collaboration between China and ESA. The mission is made of two spacecraft to investigate the magnetospheric global processes and their response to the interplanetary disturbances in conjunction with the Cluster mission. The first spacecraft, TC-1 (Tan Ce means "Explorer"), was launched on 29 December 2003, and the second one, TC-2, on 25 July 2004 on board two Chinese Long March 2C rockets. TC-1 was injected in an equatorial orbit of 570x79000 km altitude with a 28° inclination and TC-2 in a polar orbit of 560x38000 km altitude. The orbits have been designed to complement the Cluster mission by maximizing the time when both Cluster and Double Star are in the same scientific regions. The two missions allow simultaneous observations of the Earth magnetosphere from six points in space. To facilitate the comparison of data, half of the Double Star payload is made of spare or duplicates of the Cluster instruments; the other half is made of Chinese instruments. Liu, Z.X., C.P. Escoubet, Z. Pu, H. Laakso, J.K. Shi, C. Shen, M. Hapgood, The Double Star Mission, Ann. Geophys., 23, 2707-2712, 2005; https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-2707-2005