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Pioneer Venus Orbiter(PVO) hourly averaged plasma data

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

This data set holds hourly data for the interplanetary solar wind near Venus from the Plasma Analyzer (OPA) \nexperiment on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter spacecraft. Data coverage includes cruise (enroute to Venus from Earth, May - Dec. 1978) and orbital (Dec. 1978 to \nOct. 1992) mission phases up through loss of telemetry on Oct. 8, 1992 before atmospheric entry. The data consist of hourly-averages of the derived plasma parameters for every spectrum returned by the OPA. Each record consists of the spacecraft ID, the date of the record, the hour of the day (spacecraft event time) at the start of the record, reserved (but not used) space for the magnetic field and its azimuthal and polar angles, the proton temperature (K), and the plasma density (cm-3), bulk speed (km/sec), and azimuthal and polar flow angles (degrees). Also included in each record is the RMS dispersion of the derived, averaged quantities. Measurements made inside the Venusian bow shock were mostly excluded. The ASCII hourly data here are described in plain text files (*.txt). Orbital data in heliocentric or Venus-centered coordinates are provided with both datatypes. The hourly data may also be browsed, plotted, and retrieved through the COHOWeb data system. Merged solar wind magnetic field and plasma data from PVO, transformed into more convenient heliographic/RTN coordinates, are available in COHO directory PIONEER_VENUS/MERGED.

Access & Use Information

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

Downloads & Resources

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) Data Services
Maintainer
Identifier /SDE/SPASE_JSON/|8663285478b34821c0950cf25574daf9
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 b9ea0210-fb24-48f0-af68-9291c7882d98
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 516873fa5481d3f8c685a3fdb10a3b8817721f294f4dbfbe4ccdce661840daee
Source Schema Version 1.1

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