0readme_long.txt 
     [To go in the main sampex directory in RAID
          
A) INTRODUCTION:
   ------------
SAMPEX spacecraft was launched on 3 July 1992 to monitor cosmic rays in the 
1-100 MeV/nucleon range. Emphasis was on the fluxes of ions near the 
C-N-O group which has an "anomalous" excess component. With an 
inclination of 82 deg at launch (apogee at 670 km, and perigee at 520 km),
it passes through the Van Allen belt as well as the polarcap. On-board
electronic memory is large enough to collect a full orbit data, and 
dump them over a ground station once a day.

HILT and MAST instrument are responsible for high resolution data of 
particles 4 AMU and higher, while LICA and PET are designed to cover
mainly electrons, protons, and alphas. Further details are available in  

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=92-038A

B) CURRENT SAMPEX DATA AVAILABLE VIA FTP:
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There are four types of Level 2 daily files; each file is a composite,
carrying data from all four instruments.
 
(1) 30-s fluxes (about 4 MB/day) from several energy channels from each
    instrument; held in subdirectory, 
    sampex/combined/flux_30s_asc. 

(2) Polarcap averaged fluxes (about 600 KB/month) during each polar pass from
    the same channels that populate (1); held in subdirectory,
    sampex/combined/polarcap_avgd_flux.
 
(3) 30-s rates (about 9 MB/day) from all channels of each instrument; held in 
    sampex/combined/rate_30s_asc.

(4) Polarcap averaged rates (3 MB/month) from numerous channels during each
    polar pass; held in subdirectory,
    sampex/combined/polarcap_avgd_flux

The files of (1) and (2) are available in both ASCII and CDF; only the original
ASCII is available for the rates. The rate files are not easy to interpret; 
requesters should interact with the PI, Dr. Glenn Mason at the Univ. of 
Maryland (Glenn.Mason@umail.umd.edu).

(C) DOCUMENTATION, FORMAT DESCRIPTIONS, AND SOFTWARE:
    ------------------------------------------------
Documentation and Format Descriptions for Level 2 Data Products: 

The variable names in the data files are "in house" names. The corresponding 
instrument names and energy channels are mapped in the detailed file below.

For a Microsoft Word version use
            
https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/documents/old/miscellaneous_documents_from_nssdc/b46428.doc
      
For a "rich text format" version (for other word processors) use
      
https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/documents/old/miscellaneous_documents_from_nssdc/b46428.rtf
 

Software SAMFLUX.FOR (FORTRAN source code to select a few of the desired
30-second flux variables from the much larger list of 140 variables): 
  
https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/documents/old/miscellaneous_documents_from_nssdc/b46770.for

D) The Project Data Management Plan (PDMP) is also available. It briefly
describes the project, the spacecraft, and the instruments, and gives an
overview of the data and data flow. This is the latest version, but is dated
March 28, 1994, so details of energies, etc. might not be the final values. 
  
For a Microsoft Word version use 

ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/documents/b46429.doc

           
For a "rich text format" version (for other word processors) use

https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/documents/old/miscellaneous_documents_from_nssdc/b46429.rtf


E) PATH TO OBTAIN OR DISPLAY THE SAME DATA.
   ---------------------------------------
      The CDAWeb service allows the user to download data or draw plots of the 
CDF-form data (currently 30-s fluxes and polarcap fluxes). CDAWeb does not
supply documentation, so obtain the documentation (and software or other 
information if desired) as noted in the previous section. Try CDAWeb at

http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdaweb/sp_phys/.
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