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Wind SMS Suite SupraThermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (SMS/STICS) Ion Angular Flux Maps (AFMs), Level 2 (L2), 30-minute Data in Solar Wind

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

The data include Wind STICS 30-minute Angular Flux Maps (AFMs) for selected ion species using triple coincidence (H+, He+, He2+, C5+, O+, O6+, and Fe10+) and double coincidence (H+, He+, He2+, O+, O6+) measurements in the solar wind. AFMs give the flow direction of the measured plasma divided into 48 velocity vector components ranging over sixteen azimuthal sectors and three elevation bins. AFMs are formed by integrating the VDFs over E/q. For details, see https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/wind/documents/wind_stics_lv2_release_notes_revD.pdf.\nThe Suprathermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (STICS) is a time of flight (TOF) plasma mass spectrometer, capable of identifying mass and mass per charge for incident ions up to 200 keV/e. It uses an electrostatic analyzer to admit ions of a particular energy per charge (E/Q) into the TOF chamber. The E/Q voltage is stepped through 32 values, sitting at each value for approximately 24 sec., to measure ions over the full E/Q range of 6 - 200 keV/e. Ions then pass through a carbon foil and TOF chamber, before finally impacting on a solid-state detector (SSD) for energy measurement. STICS combines these three measurements of E/Q, TOF and residual energy, producing PHA words. This triple-coincidence technique greatly improves the signal to noise ratio in the data. Measurements of E/Q and TOF without residual energy also produce PHA words. These double-coincidence measurements are characterized by better statistics since ions whose energy does not allow them to be registered by the SSD can still be counted in double-coincidence measurements. However, ion identification in double-coincidence measurements are limited to a select number of ions that are well separated in E/Q - TOF space. The STICS instrument provides full 3D velocity distribution functions, through a combination of multiple telescopes and spacecraft spin. The instrument includes 3 separate TOF telescopes that view 3 separate latitude sectors, as shown in Figure 1 (https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/wind/documents/wind_stics_lv2_release_notes_revD.pdf). In addition, the WIND spacecraft spins, allowing the 3 telescopes to trace out a nearly 4π steradian viewing area. The longitudinal sectors are shown in Figure 2. The solar direction is in sectors 8-10 while the earthward direction is in sectors 0-2.

Access & Use Information

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

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Dates

Metadata Created Date August 30, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 30, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb) Data Services
Maintainer
Identifier https://doi.org/10.48322/57np-qg69
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 68b275fc-8077-479c-b40d-27c45250a5a0
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.48322/57np-qg69
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 435b8f16ee5bc4693f1a75f1041a443c3e0e7fef12b8ddfb1d7863a7c9592a73
Source Schema Version 1.1

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