• SWAP Intro
• About SWAP Data
• Accessing Data

Overview

Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument is designed to measure the properties of solar wind ions for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. The SWAP instrument is an electrostatic instrument. The SWAP electro-optics control the energy band pass of ions entering the instrument. The electro-optics has three parts: the Retarding Potential Analyzer (RPA), the Electrostatic Analyzer (ESA), and the deflector (DFL). The RPA consists of four grids with the inner two having a positive voltage, which repels ions with energies less than the corresponding potential energy (qV). The Electrostatic Analyzer has two parts, which are concentrically spaced, an inner dome and an outer spherical shell (at ground). Only ions with a limited range of energies pass through the ESA to reach the detector. The deflector is used to adjust the field of view.

The SWAP description was was adapted from the New Horizons website, Weaver et al. (2007), and McComas et al. (2007).

The SWAP Tabs

The tabs associated with this page describe the SWAP data files and how to obtain and use them.

• About SWAP Data - Organization of the archive and links to key documents
• Accessing Data - Links to the data volumes