National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The WAVES investigation on the WIND spacecraft provides comprehensive coverage of radio and plasma wave phenomena in the frequency range from a fraction of a Hertz up to about 14 MHz for the electric field and 3 kHz for the magnetic field. This package permits several kind of measurements, all of which are essential to understanding the Earth's environment --the Geospace-- and its response to varying solar wind conditions. In situ measurements of different modes of plasma waves gives information on local processes and couplings in different regions and boundaries of the Geospace leading to plasma instabilities: magneto-acoustic waves, ion cyclotron waves, whistler waves, electron plasma oscillations, electron burst noise and other types of electrostatic or electromagnetic waves.