Global scale Earth's upper atmosphere monitoring by SACI-1 micro-satellite

The first Brazilian scientific micro-satellite, SACI-1, is scheduled to be launched in the 2nd semester of 1999. It will be placed in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at a height of 750 km. Four scientific payloads, airglow photometer, high energy particle telescopes, plasma probes and high sensitive magnetometer, are on board to monitor the Earth's upper atmosphere environment. The main scientific goal is focused on upper atmospheric dynamics, ionospheric plasma irregularities, anomalous cosmic ray and field-aligned electric current system in the magnetosphere. International collaboration will be necessary, and this will be a key point in order to maximize the utilization of the data.