SM31A-4162:
Design, Calibration and Specifications of the Space Environment in-Situ Suite (SEISSS) Space Weather Instruments for the GOES-R Program
Wednesday, 17 December 2014
Bronislaw Dichter1, Gary E Galica1, John O McGarity1, E. Gary Mullen1, Frederick A Hanser1, Sam Tsui1, Clifford Lopate2 and James J Connell3, (1)Assurance Technology Corporation, Carlisle, MA, United States, (2)University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, (3)University of New Hampshire, Physics, Durham, NH, United States
Abstract:
The next generation GOES spacecraft will continue the long-term operational measurement of the charged particle environment in geosynchronous orbit with the SEISS space environment monitors. The suite comprises five instruments that measure electrons and ions in multiple energy ranges and a data processing unit. Two of the instruments, MPS-LO and EHIS provide new measurement capabilities compared with previous GOES environmental monitors. The MPS-LO (new to GOES) is an electrostatic instrument that measures electrons and ions from 30 eV to 30 keV in 15 logarithmically spaced energy bins. Its twelve 15ox5o angular channels provide a 180o FOV oriented north to south. The MPS-HI instrument, using solid state Si detector telescopes, covers the energy range of 50 keV to 4 MeV for electrons and 80 keV to 10 MeV for protons each along five 15o half angle look angles spaced 35o apart. High energy solar and galactic protons in the range of 1 to 500 MeV are measured by the SGPS, which also has an integral channel above 500 MeV. This broad energy range is divided into three sub-ranges, 1-25, 25-80 and 80-500 MeV, each measured by a separate Si detector telescope. The opening half-angles of the telescopes are 30o, 30o and 45o respectively. There are east and west oriented SGPS instruments. Energetic heavy ions are detected by EHIS, also consisting of solid state detectors, in thirty individual species from H to Ni and in five logarithmically spaced energy bands from 10 MeV/n to 200 MeV/n. The FOV is a 30oopening half-angle cone. Extensive calibrations at accelerator facilities have been performed to verify the 25% accuracy of each instrument’s geometric factor. In addition, performances of the solid state detector instruments have been modeled using the GEANT and FLUKA Monte Carlo codes and the results compared to calibration measurements. Energy overlap regions of the instruments will be used to improve the quality and self-consistency of the data sets.
