Apollo 12 Lunar Surface Experiments Package Solar Wind Spectrometer 28-Second-Resolution and 1-Hour-Average ASCII Data Bundle Extracted from the PDS3 Data Set Catalog File. Data Set Overview ================= This data set contains daily tables of time ordered, 28-second-resolution plasma parameters, mainly of the solar wind, as observed on the Moon at the Apollo 12 ALSEP site by the Apollo 12 Solar Wind Spectrometer (SWS) from 19 November 1969 through 25 March 1976. This is the highest resolution data set available from the SWS instrument. This data set also contains tables of time ordered, hourly-averaged plasma parameters, mainly of the solar wind, as observed on the Moon at the Apollo 12 ALSEP site by the Apollo 12 Solar Wind Spectrometer (SWS) from 19 November 1969 through 25 March 1976. Data ==== The 28-second SWS data tables are in fixed-width ASCII format. There is one table for each daily set of SWS measurements. Each daily table contains a sequence of plasma measurements made every 28.1 seconds. Each record in a table provides the time of a measurement, proton density, alpha-to-proton ratio, proton bulk speed, and angle of flow. Each record identifies the Faraday cup on the side of the instrument (one of six) that measured the most charge. The measured charge of this cup, the adjacent side cups, and the vertical (top) cup are included in each record as well as the most probable thermal speed, and various housekeeping and fit parameters relating to the reliability of the calculated plasma parameters. Note that a value of 99.0 in Column 14, the Percentage Error in Fitting Program, indicates the fit was bad and thus all computed plasma parameters in that row are invalid. These data tables were converted from the CDF format which was created from the original binary data set PSFP-00118 by the NSSDC as part of the Lunar Data Restoration project. The original tapes were written in BCD format on a UNIVAC 1108 computer. See Clay, et al. (1975) [CLAYETAL1975], Goldstein, et al. (1973) [GOLDSTEINETAL1973], Neugebauer, et al. (1972) [NEUGEBAUERETAL1972], and Snyder, et al. (1970) [SNYDERETAL1970] for more information about the SWS plasma data from Apollo 12. The hourly averaged SWS data tables are in fixed-width ASCII format. There is one table for each year the SWS recorded data. Each table provides four sets of computed hourly parameters using as input data: (1) all fine-time scale parameters (FTSP), (2) all FTSP computed from spectra with small root-mean-square (RMS) error on curve fitting and thermal speeds less than one-half the bulk velocity, (3) all FTSP computed from spectra that satisfy the requirements of criterion 2 as well as having only one flow angle that can be directly measured, and (4) all FTSP computed from spectra that satisfy the requirements of criterion 2 as well as having both flow angles directly measurable. Contained in each of the four sets of averages are the proton density, alpha-to-proton ratio, bulk speed, angle of flow, number of spectra, and RMS deviations of each average. These data tables were converted from the CDF format which was created from the original binary data set PSFP-00117 by the NSSDC as part of the Lunar Data Restoration project. The original tapes were written in BCD format on a UNIVAC 1108 computer. See Clay, et al. (1975) [CLAYETAL1975], Goldstein, et al. (1973) [GOLDSTEINETAL1973], Neugebauer, et al. (1972) [NEUGEBAUERETAL1972], and Snyder, et al. (1970) [SNYDERETAL1970] for more information about the SWS plasma data from Apollo 12. This data set description was provided by the NSSDC. Confidence Level Overview ========================= These data tables are restorations of the original binary data recorded by the SWS experiment and were reviewed internally at the NSSDC for accuracy and completeness. Review ====== This data set was peer-reviewed in December 2007 and was accepted for the PDS archive pending the resolution of liens (completed in August 2008).