Cluster Status Report - May 2007
In June-July 2007, the next constellation manoeuvres will be executed to change the orientation of the 10 000 km triangle formed by C1, C2 and C3 and to approach C3 and C4 to 40 km, the closest distance ever reached between two Cluster spacecraft.
Operations and Archiving
JSOC and ESOC operations are following the master science plan. The data return from January 2007 to March 2007 was on average 99.5%.
The Cluster Active Archive (CAA) development continues steadily. The 4th Cross-Calibration Workshop was held in LPCE, Orléans, France, on 12-13 Feb 2007. The CAA has currently 386 registered users. After some high downloading peaks in December and January (total downloading rate was about 1 TB), the downloading rate has returned to a regular level of 25-30 GB per month. CAA will produce extensive sets of pre-generated plots (1-hr, 6-hr, 24-hr, orbital plots from all spacecraft) that illustrate the various data products. This work is approaching its completion and the system is expected to become available in April.
Science Highlights
As of April 2007, 591 papers have been published in the refereed literature and 33 Ph.D's have been obtained using Cluster and Double star data. A. Retino from IRF Uppsala published a paper in Nature Physics using Cluster data. The study showed, for the first time, magnetic reconnection taking place in a turbulent plasma.