The Goddard Medium Energy experiment on the IMP 8 spacecraft has made nearly continuous observations of the near-Earth energetic particle environment from its launch in October, 1973 until near present. We summarize several aspects of these observations, including solar energetic particle events, CIR-associated events, and cosmic ray modulations. In particular, we note that, as expected from the pattern of smaller recurrent (27 day) cosmic ray modulations seen in the mid 1980's A<0 solar minimum compared to the previous and following (A>0) minima, recurrent modulations are again reduced in the current solar minimum.

Proceedings of the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference; Rogelio Caballero, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Gustavo Medina-Tanco, Lukas Nellen, Federico A. Sánchez, José F. Valdés-Galicia (eds.); Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008; Vol. 1 (SH), pages 323-326