The IMAP-3 magnetic field experiment is designed to study the following processes in the Earth's plasma environment: structure of the inner magnetosphere magnetic field; structure of the small scale field-aligned currents; dynamics of the field-aligned currents during substorms; and relation of the processes in the auroral zone and in the tail.
The IMAP-3 was designed and manufactured under cooperation of IZMIRAN (http://www.izmiran.rssi.ru), NPL SDS (Bulgaria) and PIC GPI of RAS.
The instrument is designed to measure three components of the DC magnetic field in two ranges: +/- 6800 nT with resolution 1 nT and +/- 68000 nT with resolution 10 nT. Usually magnetometer data are transmitted to the scientific SSNI telemetry system at a rate of one vector per 3 seconds; during special intervals data are transmitted to telemetry at 2 or 8 vectors second depending on the instrument operating mode.
The spacecraft was launched on 29 August 1996. The IMAP-3 was initially tested on the 9th of September and started to work regularly on the 14th of September.