WIND

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WIND Spacecraft

Wind Project Scientist
Lynn B. Wilson III
(301) 286-6487
lynn.b.wilson [at] nasa.gov

Two Columns

WIND SPACECRAFT

Comprehensive Solar Wind Laboratory for Long-Term Solar Wind Measurements

Wind is a spin stabilized spacecraft launched with a Delta II rocket on November 1, 1994. After several orbits through the magnetosphere, Wind was placed in a Lissajous orbit around the L1 Lagrange point -- more than 200 Re upstream of Earth -- in early 2004 to observe the unperturbed solar wind that is about to impact the magnetosphere of Earth. Wind was later inserted into a halo orbit about L1 in 2020.

Wind and Polar were part of the stand-alone Global Geospace Science (GGS) program, a subset of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program which included the additional missions Geotail, SoHO and Cluster. The objective of the ISTP program was to study the origin of solar variability and activity, the transport of manifestations of that activity to the Earth via plasma processes, and the cause-and-effect relationships between that time varying energy transport and the near-earth environment.

Wind's original name was Interplanetary Physics Laboratory while its GGS partner Polar was short for Polar Plasma Laboratory. This is, in part, why the name for the Wind spacecraft is sometimes written in all capital letters though it was never an acronym.

The primary science objectives of the Wind mission are:

Provide complete plasma, energetic particle and magnetic field for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies.
Investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind.
Provide baseline, 1 AU, ecliptic plane observations for inner and outer heliospheric missions.

CMAD and PDMP

2024 Wind Project Data Management Plan (PDMD)

2024 Wind Calibration and Measurement Algorithms Document (CMAD)

AWARDS

Top Cited Article 2021-2022 [February, 2023]: The Wind review paper published in Reviews of Geophysics was awarded as a ''Top Cited Article 2021-2022'' by the journal.

Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal [September, 2019]: Lynn B. Wilson III, Wind's project scientist, was awarded the 2019 Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal For exceptional scientific discoveries in collisionless shock physics and the kinetic physics of space plasmas.

Engineering Operations Award [September, 2015]: The Wind Operations Team, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, received the AIAA Space Operations & Support Award on September 2, 2015. The award honors the team's "exceptional ingenuity and personal sacrifice in the recovery of NASA's Wind spacecraft." Jacqueline Snell - engineering manager for Wind, Geotail, and ACE Missions - will accept the award on behalf of the team. [Award Details]

Group Achievement Award [June, 2015]: The Wind Operations Team, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, received the NASA Group Achievement Award for recovery of the Wind spacecraft's command and attitude processor. [Award Details]

NEWS: Highlights and Updates

Mission Highlight [Nov 2024]:
Wind was highlighted in a story about bonus science from multiple NASA missions at 5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun. The specific Wind story is at NASA Missions Study What May Be a 1-In-10,000-Year Gamma-ray Burst.

Mission Highlight [Nov 2024]:
Wind turned 30 on November 1, 2024! This milestone was highlighted in a press release found at 30 Years On, NASA’s Wind Is a Windfall for Studying our Neighborhood in Space.

Mission Highlight [May 2024]:
Wind data has been used (directly or indirectly) in more than 7000 refereed scientific publications!

Mission Highlight [Nov 2023]:
Wind turned 29 on November 1, 2023.

Mission Highlight [Nov 2022]:
Wind turned 28 on November 1, 2022.

Science Highlight [Oct 2022]:
Wind data helped to detect one of the strongest/brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) events on record, with a total energy output of 10⁵⁴ ergs (or 10⁴⁷ J). The story is highlighted at Exceptional Cosmic Blast.

Mission Highlight [Mar 2022]:
Wind data has been used (directly or indirectly) in more than 6000 refereed scientific publications!

Science Highlight [May 2021]:
A comprehensive review paper of the scientific highlights and accomplishments of the Wind spacecraft was published in Reviews of Geophysics on May 14, 2021. The paper was highlighted by the journal in an Editors' Vox on the EOS website.

Science Highlight [Mar 2021]:
Wind data was used to trace the source region of solar energetic particles (SEPs) and was highlighted on NASA's home page at Scientists Trace Fastest Solar Particles to Their Roots. The study is published in Science Advances (doi:10.1126/sciadv.abf0068).

Science Highlight [Jan 2021]:
Wind data was used in some recent studies that was highlighted on NASA's home page at Giant Flares in Nearby Galaxy. At least two Nature papers have resulted from these observations (doi:10.1038/s41586-020-03076-9 and doi:10.1038/s41586-020-03077-8), all of which relied upon Wind/KONUS observations.

Science Highlight [Nov 2020]:
Wind data was used in some recent studies that was highlighted on NASA's home page at Fast Radio Bursts. At least six Nature papers resulted from these observations, all of which relied upon Wind/KONUS observations.

Mission Highlight [Nov 2019]:
Wind turned 25 on November 1, 2019. A press release highlighting its 25 years of service can be found at 25 Years of Science in the Solar Wind

Science Highlight [June 2019]:
Wind data was used in a recent study showing that ions are heated in a preferential zone close to the solar surface, at altitudes that will be visited by Parker Solar Probe in roughly two years. The study was also highlighted at: Solving the sun’s super-heating mystery with Parker Solar Probe

Mission Highlight [May 2019]:
Wind data has been used (directly or indirectly) in more than 5000 refereed scientific publications!

Science Highlight [May 2017]:
Wind data was used in a recent study to show that some aspects of MHD may be more relevant in solar wind models than previously thought. The study was also highlighted at: UNH Researcher Identifies Key Differences in Solar Wind Models

Mission Highlight [January 2017]:
Wind data has been used (directly or indirectly) in more than 4000 refereed scientific publications!

Science Highlight [November 2016]:
Data from the Wind spacecraft was used in to support a recent study published in the journal Physical Review Letters that was selected as an Editors' Suggestion article at Electron Acceleration, highlighted at NASA and Physical Review Letters Highlights and THEMIS Nuggets, and some fun visualizations of Shock Drift Acceleration.

Mission Update [June 2016]:
Dr. Lynn B. Wilson III was promoted to the project scientist role for the Wind spacecraft.

Science Highlight [December 2014]:
The Wind spacecraft recently turned 20 on November 1, 2014. The anniversary of its launch was marked by a special session at the 2014 Fall AGU General Assembly entitled Twenty Years of Wind Observations and a highlight on NASA's homepage at A Solar Wind Workhorse Marks 20 Years of Science Discoveries.

Science Highlight [September 2014]:
A recent study discussing the sonification of Wind magnetic field data was featured on NASA's homepage at More Than Meets the Eye: NASA Scientists Listen to Data and Popular Science at NASA Scientists Study The Sun By Listening To It.

Science Highlight [April 2013]:
A recent publication using data from the Wind spacecraft was featured on NASA's homepage at NASA’s Wind Mission Encounters ‘SLAMS’ Waves.

Science Highlight [March 2013]:
A recent publication using data from the Wind spacecraft was highlighted as a Physical Review Letters spotlight article and a NASA Feature Article at Solar Wind Energy Source Discovered.

Science Highlight [April 2012]:
A recent publication using data from the Wind spacecraft was featured on NASA's homepage at Riding the Plasma Wave.

New Data Products

New 3DP Data Set:
2023 The 3DP electron electrostatic analyzer (ESA) data was used to construct a database of spacecraft floating potential measurements for Wind between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2022. The data are found at Wind spacecraft floating potential.

New WAVES Data Set:
2023 The WAVES TDSF data was used to update the Wind dust impact database through Sep. 1, 2023 available at CDAWeb (labeled wi_l3-dustimpact_waves). The database is described in the original publication at Malaspina and Wilson [2016].

New WAVES Data Set:
2023 The WAVES radio receiver direction finding data is now available at at CDAWeb (labeled wi_wa_rad1_l3_df). The data include the Stokes I parameter, wave vector spherical angles, radio source angular size, signal modulation rate, and a quality flag.

New 3DP Data Set:
2023 The 3DP electron electrostatic analyzer (ESA) data has been calibrated and used to define velocity moments for the entire velocity distribution function (VDF) and the three primary electron components in the solar wind (i.e., core, halo, and beam/strahl). The data can be found at CDAWeb (labeled wind_3dp_echsfits_E0-YR). The data include the density, temperature, and drift velocity for the three components. For the entire VDF, the data include density, bulk velocity, temperature, and parallel electron heat flux.

New WAVES Data Set:
2023 The WAVES TDSF data between February 2, 1995 and December 31, 2022 has been uploaded to Zenodo at Wind WAVES TDSF Dataset. The data product details are provided in the metadata at the link.

New SMS Data Set:
2022 The SMS Suprathermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (STICS) has recently been reprocessed to produce four new data sets found at CDAWeb (with labels wi_l2-30min_sms-stics-* and wi_l2-3min_sms-stics-*, where * is replaced by the data product and region of space the data was taken, i.e., magnetosphere or solar wind). The data include sectored fluxes for the following ions: H⁺, He⁺, He²⁺, O⁺, O⁶⁺, C⁵⁺, and Fe¹⁰⁺.

New WAVES Data Set:
2021 The WAVES TDSF data between February 2, 1995 and December 31, 2020 has been uploaded to Zenodo at Wind WAVES TDSF Dataset. The data product details are provided in the metadata at the link.

New 3DP Data Set:
2019 The 3DP electron electrostatic analyzer (ESA) data has been calibrated and used to define velocity moments for the three primary electron components in the solar wind (i.e., core, halo, and beam/strahl). The data can be found at Supplement to: Electron energy partition across interplanetary shocks as part of a three-part paper on the partition of electron energy. All three parts have been published in the The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series and The Astrophysical Journal.

New SMS Data Set:
2019 The SMS Suprathermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (STICS) has recently been reprocessed to produce four new data sets found at CDAWeb (with labels wi_l2-hplus-3min_sms-stics-* and wi_l2-he2plus-3min_sms-stics-*, where the asterisk is either solarwind or magnetosphere). The data include sectored fluxes for hydrogen and alpha-particles separated by time periods inside and outside the terrestrial magnetosphere. The instrument includes 3 separate TOF telescopes that view 3 separate latitude sectors (16 total sectors). The spinning spacecraft body allows the three telescopes to cover nearly 4 π steradian. The solar direction is in sectors 8-10 while the earthward direction is in sectors 0-2.

New KONUS Data Set:
2018 Data for all solar flares registered by the KONUS instrument in the triggered mode are available on-line via the Solar Flare Database. The database contains energy spectra and detector response matrices in FITS format as well as light curves in G1, G2 and G3 channels in ASCII and IDL SAV formats for solar flares detected in the triggered mode. New solar observations will be added to the database as soon as they arrive.

New EPACT Data Sets:
2018 Newly procesed Wind EPACT-STEP data sets are available at CDAWeb.

2017 New graphical user interface (GUI) software release for analyzing the SWE FC data sets can be found at Janus.

New 3DP Data Set:
2016 The 3DP electron electrostatic analyzer (ESA) data has recently been re-examined to produce updated velocity moments for the entire electron distribution. The data can be found at CDAWeb (with label wi_emfits_e0_3dp) currently covering Jan. 1, 1995 to Dec. 31, 2004. The data was produced for periods when the Wind spacecraft was in the solar wind, thus periods in the magnetosphere have not been processed.

New WAVES Data Set:
2016 The WAVES time domain sampler (TDS) receiver, which measures high frequency electric and magnetic fluctuations, also observes the plasma cloud produced by dust impacts on the spacecraft body. David Malaspina (PI) and Lynn B. Wilson III (Co-I) recently scanned through and compiled a list of all the dust impacts observed by the TDS receiver between Jan. 1, 1995 and Jan. 1, 2016 called the dust impact database. The data set was publicly released and is available at CDAWeb.

New SWE Ion Faraday Cup Data Sets:
2016 Newly processed Wind SWE Ion Faraday Cup (FCs) data sets are available on the Data section of this page. The SWE Ion reduced velocity distribution function data sets are available at CDAWeb.

2016 Newly procesed Wind EPACT-LEMT data sets are available on the Data section of this page. The data are also available at CDAWeb and VEPO.

2016 New release of the 20 MeV proton channel from the EPACT-APE detector are available at VEPO and now at CDAWeb.

Senior Reviews

2023 Senior Review Proposal:

2023 Wind Senior Review Proposal

[Note there was no grading report for Wind like in prior years as it is now an Infrastructure Mode mission. There was only an official email informing the project scientist that the mission was approved for continuation through FY26.]

2020 Senior Review Proposal:

2020 Wind Senior Review Proposal

Final Report from the 2020 Senior Review

2017 Senior Review Proposal:

2017 Wind Senior Review Proposal

Final Report from the 2017 Senior Review

2015 Senior Review Proposal:

2015 Wind Senior Review Proposal

Final Report from the 2015 Senior Review

2013 Senior Review Proposal:

2013 Wind Senior Review Proposal

Final Report from the 2013 Senior Review