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Summary
DescriptionMaxis final traject.jpg
English: On January 12, 2000 the MAXIS (MeV Auroral X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy) balloon was launched from Williams Field, McMurdo Station Antarctica after more than three weeks of weather related delays. This experiment was originally scheduled for launch in June of 1999 from Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks, Alaska. However, the Alaska launch was cancelled and rescheduled for Antarctica. Between January 12-30, 2000 the MAXIS balloon successfully circumnavigated the South Pole at altitudes of about 120,000 feet and was similar to the 1998 northern hemisphere balloon flight in its science objectives. During the mission, the auroral x-ray instruments on MAXIS recorded an event between 21:20 UT January 19 and 00:20 UT January 20. Also, an auroral x-ray event possibly associated with a shock in the solar wind was observed between January 22-26, 2000. Preliminary data for these events are given here. These data were received from the low-rate TDRSS satellite telemetry link.
Images from NASA usually are free of copyright. Images from NSF are usually free of copyright.
The scientific purpose for the MAXIS flight is to study electron precipitation from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere. This electron precipitation creates the aurora (northern and southern lights) along with X-rays which can be observed with our balloon instrumentation. The MAXIS balloon was terminated on January 30, 2000 at 22:13 UT after a successful 450 hour flight. The balloon was cut-down over Victoria Land, approximately 390 nautical miles from McMurdo Station. On February 3, 2000 the recovery team (Steven Peterzen and Robyn Millan) reached the payload via Twin Otter and found the gondola in relatively good condition considering it had come to a stop upside down following landing. The data vault containing the hard drive, the UW x-ray imagers, the BGO detector, and three of the four sun-sensor arrays were among the components successfully recovered.
The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not necessarily in the public domain.
The SOHO (ESA & NASA) joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use. [2]
{{Information |Description={{en|1=On January 12, 2000 the MAXIS (MeV Auroral X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy) balloon was launched from Williams Field, McMurdo Station Antarctica after more than three weeks of weather related delays. This experiment was or