Post-launch support for Cluster FGM

星系团是欧洲航天局的一项任务，由四艘航天器发射进入绕地球轨道。这四个航天器各携带11台仪器，旨在探测控制地球无碰撞等离子体环境的物理过程。航天器以四面体的队形飞行，首次实现了就地测量等离子体的三维结构，并将其与等离子体随时间的变化区分开来。星团轨道带着航天器穿过地球磁层区域，这些区域是无碰撞等离子体中基本过程的地点，包括太阳风中的磁流体动力学湍流、无碰撞激波过程中的能量分配、通过磁层顶重新连接和其他过程进行的能量转移、通过尖端流入磁层的能量、极光区的粒子加速以及磁尾的亚暴过程，包括重新连接和电流破坏。帝国理工学院是构成每个星系团有效载荷一部分的磁通门磁力计(FGM)的首席研究机构。磁场是了解无碰撞等离子体行为的一个关键参数，因此，功能梯度材料仪器几乎对利用星系团数据进行的每一项科学研究都有贡献。作为PI机构，我们负责四台女性生殖器切割仪器的日常运作和持续健康，维护通过其将数据实时提供给有效载荷上的其他仪器的链接，以及校准适合于详细科学分析的高分辨率数据并将其提供给由欧空局设立和运行的集群活动档案(CAA)。这笔赠款的目的是请求提供支助，以便为目前计划至少持续到2009年6月的群组任务的剩余部分继续履行这些责任提供支助。

Cluster is a European Space Agency mission of four spacecraft launched into orbit around the Earth. The four spacecraft carry 11 instruments each, together designed to probe the physical processes that control the collisionless plasma environment of the Earth. The spacecraft fly in a tetrahedron formation, allowing the three dimensional structure of the plasma to be measured in-situ for the first time, and distinguished from variations in the plasma as a function of time. The Cluster orbit takes the spacecraft through regions of the Earth's magnetosphere that are the sites of fundamental processes in collisionless plasmas, including magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in the solar wind, energy partition in collisionless shock processes, energy transfer through reconnection and other processes at the magnetopause, energy flow into the magnetosphere through the cusps, particle acceleration in the auroral zone, and substorm processes, including reconnection and current disruption, in the magnetotail. Imperial College is the Principal Investigator institution for the flux-gate magnetometer (FGM) that forms part of each Cluster payload. The magnetic field is a key parameter in understanding the behaviour of collisionless plasmas, and therefore the FGM instrument contributes to nearly every scientific study carried out using Cluster data. As the PI institution we are responsible for the ongoing routine operation and continued health of the four FGM instruments, the maintenance of the link through which data is supplied in real time to other instruments on the payload, and the calibration and delivery of high resolution data suitable for detailed scientific analysis to the Cluster Active Archive (CAA), set up and run by ESA. The purpose of this grant is to request support for the continuation of these responsibilities for the remainder of the Cluster mission, currently planned to run until at least June 2009.