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Alouette 2 Topside Electron Density Profiles Manually Scaled at CRC

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

This data set, provided by the Communications Research Centre (CRC) in Ottawa, Canada, consists of electron density profiles derived from Alouette 2 Sweep-Frequency Sounder for the ionosphere above the F2 maximum (topside ionosphere). The data set was originally provided on an EBCDIC magnetic tape written on an IBM 360 computer. The electron density profiles were computed from digital values of frequency and virtual height, scaled from ionograms. The data are ordered chronologically and include about 11,000 profiles. Telemetry stations are not identified, but satellite location, Greenwich mean time of observation, solar zenith angle at the satellite, dip latitude at the satellite, total electron content down to the lowest height of topside signal reflection (normally near 300 km), and other relevant information is noted with each profile. The format gives sequences of numbers for each point scaled from the ionogram. These sequences include electron density at the successive points, and the coefficients a2, b3, b4, b5, etc. from which geometric heights can be calculated, using formulas 40 and 41 in J. E. Jackson, "The reduction of topside ionograms to electron-density profiles," Proceedings of the IEEE., p. 960, June 1969. These formulas can also be used to calculate interpolated density-height values. A CRC interpolation program available at NSSDC can be used with this data set. The ionograms were selected for their scientific interest and comprise only a very small portion of reductions possible from the available ionograms. Data obtained prior to March 9, 1970, are also available on microfiche from NSSDC.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

No file downloads have been provided. The publisher may provide downloads in the future or they may be available from their other links.

Dates

Metadata Created Date March 13, 2026
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date March 13, 2026
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb) Data Services;NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Data Services
Maintainer
Identifier /SDE/SPASE_JSON/|1d128cf87f117519937d8f0a1a715c91
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Heliophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 68ad7ea3-3240-4259-b483-0e148c38953f
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 5b8cf8474b280e03e1370291101ecd36c5dcee1b329355d211b05c0622ff9ead
Source Schema Version 1.1

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