MAGNETOMETER OBSERVATIONS DURING THE FLYBY
OF THE DEEP SPACE 1 SPACECRAFT AT THE
ASTEROID BRAILLE
I. RICHTER1, K.-H. GLASSMEIER1, F. KUHNKE1, G. MUSMANN1, C.
OTHMER1 D. BRINZA2, B. TSURUTANI2
1
Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, Technical University of Braunschweig,
Germany
2
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, USA
On October 24th, 1998 the DEEP SPACE 1 (DS1) spacecraft as part of
NASA's New Millennium program was launched at Cape Canevaral. Its
major feature is the first use of an ion propulsion (Xenon gas) on a deep
space mission. The first successful goal of the mission was the extremely
close encounter with the asteroid Braille on July 29th, 1999. During the
whole mission the two fluxgate magnetometers (FGM) of the TU
Braunschweig (Germany) measured interesting magnetic field data. Due to
the magnetically disturbed environment, caused by the thruster system, the
flyby data had to be analyzed in a multiple step process to extract the
magnetic signature of the asteroid Braille. Fitting a magnetic dipole to the
processed data we obtained a value of about 2 * 10^(11) Am^2 as a coarse
estimation for the maximum magnetization of Braille. In the talk the data
analysis procedure will be presented and the results concerning the
magnetical characterization of Braille will be discussed in comparison to
similar celestial bodies.