Small- and Large-scale Morphology of the Near-Earth Energetic Charged Particle Environment from a Ten-element CubeSat Constellation

Abstract:

A 10-satellite constellation placed in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will carry high geometric factor omnidirectional integrating energetic particle detectors responsive to electrons greater than ~500 keV to characterize the near-Earth distribution of Van Allen Belt electrons precipitating or mirroring at altitudes between ~350 and ~500 km. The full constellation will be constructed by two deployments of identical 1.5U CubeSats into LEO. The first launch will deploy eight satellites into a polar sun-synchronous orbit from the Island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands to form the NASA/Ames Research Center "Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks" (EDSN) swarm of satellites. The on-board Energetic Particle Integrating Space Environment Monitor (EPISEM) instrument built by the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory at Montana State University consists of a cylindrical 12 cm*2-ster omnidirectional Geiger counter sensitive to electrons above about 500 keV. The eight EDSN satellites are expected to deploy in late November 2014 into an 410 x 485 km orbit at ~92 degrees inclination forming two slowly-separating groups of four measurement platforms each to set up the initial 8-satellite swarm. Separately, two additional copies of the EDSN satellites will deploy from the International Space Station as elements of the NODES mission into a 52 degree inclination orbit at about 375 km altitude. Together the 10 satellites will characterize the distribution of low altitude penetrating electrons over spatial scales from 10’s to thousands of km. The paper will describe the mission concept, the implementation of the spacecraft, and the unusual operations concept that allows stored science data to be collected from all eight satellites of the EDSN swarm through an intersatellite communications link and transferred to the ground by a single member of the swarm. The EDSN satellites operate completely autonomously without ground uplink. The paper will also include early scientific results if available by mid-December, 2014.