Four years of operations and results with FORTE

The FORTE (Fast Onboard Recording of Transient Events) satellite was launched on 29 August 1997 and has been in continuous operation since that time. FORTE was placed in a nearly circular, 825-km-altitude, 70 degrees inclination orbit by a Pegasus rocket funded by Air Force Space Test Program. The Department of Energy funded the FORTE satellite, which was designed and built at Los Alamos. FORTE's successful launch and engineered robustness were a result of several years of dedicated work by the joint Los Alamos National Laboratory/Sandia National Laboratory project team, led through mission definition, payload and satellite development, and launch by Dr. Stephen Knox. The project is now led by Dr. Abram Jacobson. FORTE carries a suite of instruments, an optical system and a rf system, for the study of lightning and anthropogenic signals. As a result of this effort, new understandings of lightning events have emerged as well as a more complete understanding of the relationship between optical and rf lightning events. This paper will provide an overview of the FORTE satellite and will discuss the on orbit performance of the subsystems.