SM51A-2555
In-Flight Calibration Processes for the MMS Fluxgate Magnetometers
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Kenneth R Bromund1, Hannes Karl Leinweber2, Ferdinand Plaschke3, Robert J Strangeway4, Werner Magnes5, David Fischer3, Rumi Nakamura6, Brian J Anderson7, Christopher T Russell8, Wolfgang Baumjohann5, Mark Chutter9, Roy B Torbert10, Guan Le1, James A Slavin11 and Larry Kepko1, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (3)IWF Institute for Space Research, Graz, Austria, (4)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (5)Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, (6)Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, (7)Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States, (8)University of California Los Angeles, IGPP/EPSS, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (9)University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, (10)University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States, (11)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Abstract:
The calibration effort for the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) Analog Fluxgate (AFG) and Digital Fluxgate (DFG) magnetometers is a coordinated effort between three primary institutions: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Space Research Institute, Graz, Austria (IWF); and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Since the successful deployment of all 8 magnetometers on 17 March 2015, the effort to confirm and update the ground calibrations has been underway during the MMS commissioning phase. The in-flight calibration processes evaluate twelve parameters that determine the alignment, orthogonalization, offsets, and gains for all 8 magnetometers using algorithms originally developed by UCLA and the Technical University of Braunschweig and tailored to MMS by IWF, UCLA, and GSFC. We focus on the processes run at GSFC to determine the eight parameters associated with spin tones and harmonics. We will also discuss the processing flow and interchange of parameters between GSFC, IWF, and UCLA. IWF determines the low range spin axis offsets using the Electron Drift Instrument (EDI). UCLA determines the absolute gains and sensor azimuth orientation using Earth field comparisons. We evaluate the performance achieved for MMS and give examples of the quality of the resulting calibrations.
