Program: MAGION |
Czechoslovakia |
Czech scientific program designed with the help of the Russians and
other former East-bloc countries.
- MAGION is a name of the serial of small MAGnetospheric and IONospheric satellites manufactured in Czech Republic
to be launched as Russian scientific S/C hitch-hikers. These satellites are designed to perform measurements of space
plasma parameters by a satellite/subsatellite pair simultaneously in two points which are not far from each other.
These satellites are also intended to perform diagnostic researches in the region of actively injecting complex
mounted on the main S/C.
- The history of the MAGION satellites development spings to the middle of seventieth, when in the frame of the
INTERCOSMOS space programme there were started the development of the first MAGION S/C, which was launched into the
orbit in the pair with the S/C INTERCOSMOS-18 in 1978.
| Spacecraft | Launch date | Weight | Perigee | Apogee | Stabilization |
| Magion 1 | 24.10.1978 | 15 kg | 406 km | 768 km | magnetic field |
| Magion 2 | 28.09.1989 | 52 kg | 500 km | 2500 km | magnetic field |
| Magion 3 | 18.12.1991 | 52 kg | 438 km | 3070 km | magnetic field |
| Magion 4 | 03.08.1995 | 59 kg | 1 000 km | 198 000 km | spin |
| Magion 5 | 29.08.1996 | 64 kg | 1 000 km | 20 000 km | spin |
External resources:
http://www.ufa.cas.cz/html/magion/magion.html
http://www.iki.rssi.ru/interball/magion.html
Ref: #15 - update: 23.09.10