Space-based Instruments

AuroraX contains footprints for satellites and operating flags for several onboard instruments. Below we discuss these data in more depth.

Satellite Footprints

Three sets of satellite location information are contained in AuroraX, all of which are retrieved from SSCWeb: geographic lat/lon, North B-Trace geo lat/lon, and South B-Trace geo lat/lon. The B-Trace values are the magnetic footprints for a satellite in each hemisphere, mapped in geographic coordinates. These B-Trace values are used for the conjunction search algorithm.

Swarm

Metadata is included signifying if the Thermal Ion Imager (TII) is operating, and it's data quality, for each Swarm satellite. This information is determined from a combination of two sets of files available on the Swarm data website: the baselined data, and the general operation data (second is used in the case there is no baselined data available).

ePOP

Metadata is included signifying if each ePOP instrument is operating. This information is determined using availability text files found on the ePOP data website.