STEREO WAVES (SWAVES) Radio Intensity Spectra, both Ahead and Behind s/c

A description of the STEREO/WAVES instrument is provided in: Bougeret, J.L, et al. (2008), S/WAVES: The Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation on the STEREO Mission, Space Science Reviews, 136, 487-528. The STEREO / WAVES (SWAVES) instruments provide unique and critical observations for all primary science objectives of the STEREO mission, the generation of CMEs, their evolution, and their interaction with Earth's magnetosphere.

SWAVES can probe a CME from lift-off to Earth by detecting the coronal and interplanetary (IP) shock of the most powerful CMEs, providing a radial profile through spectral imaging, determining the radial velocity from ~2 RS (from center of sun) to Earth, measuring the density of the volume of the heliosphere between the sun and Earth, and measuring important in situ properties of the IP shock, magnetic cloud, and density compression in the fast solar wind stream that follows.