FAST Database

The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) spacecraft collected up to five gigabytes per day over its operational lifespan, consolidating a rich variety of particle and fields data over a range of events and altitudes. Among other uses, these data have proven invaluable for application to the study and modeling of wave-particle interactions in Alfvénic and other waves modes, ionospheric energization, and ion outflow. However, instrumentation and operational idiosyncrasies and outdated access and representation protocols have proven to be a barrier to their usage for researchers outside the FAST team and associates. We have therefore compiled a consolidated, sanitized, and standardized database of FAST particle, field, and spectral energy quantities on a common time axis to facilitate easy access for pursuing these scientific goals without requiring detailed knowledge of instrument operation modes and instrument characteristics. Quantities in the database include spin-period averaged vector electric and magnetic field magnitudes and spectral energy densities from the sub-Hz to kHz range, electron and ion number and energy in- and outflows, and geospatial positioning and trajectory data, which are compiled as ISTP/IACG-compliant Common Data Format (CDF) files. These data are made publicly available here. Representations of the reduced measurements comprising the database are presented from the beginning of the mission in 1996 to the failure of the electric field instrument in the early 2000s. Further details and the code used for dataset generation are available on the affiliated Github page: https://github.com/krishnabhattaram/FASTDatabase.