Download Living With a Star Radiation Belt Storm Probes and Associated

Living With a Star Radiation Belt
Storm Probes and Associated
Geospace Missions
D. G. Sibeck
Project Scientist
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Geospace: Part of the Integrated LWS Plan
Stereo Lead
Solar Probe
Stereo Lag
Distributed network of spacecraft providing continuous observations of Sun-Earth system

Solar and Heliospheric Network observing the Sun & tracking disturbances from the Sun to Earth

Geospace Network uses a comprehensive set of spacecraft to diagnose the Geospace response
Original Geospace Mission Concept
•
•Radiation Belt Storm Probes
•Ionosphere-Thermosphere Storm Probes
•UV Imager: O/N2 and Electron Density
•SDO observations of EUV input
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes
Mission is in Phase A Formulation
Launch 2012
Perigee: ~630 km altitude
Apogee ~5.8 Re geocentric altitude
Inclination ~10°
Sun pointing, spin stabilized
Duration 2 years (expendables 4 years)
Radiation Belt Storm Probes – twin spacecraft in highly elliptical orbits to understand
the basic principals behind relativistic particle acceleration, transport, and loss.
Radiation Belts:
Our Window on Fundamental Physics
•Physics of the radiation belts are the physics of
•Charge particle acceleration, transport, and loss.
LWS Geospace RBSP Study Objectives
• Source, loss, and transport processes
• Shock-associated creation and decay of radiation belts;
• Quantifying adiabatic and nonadiabatic processes;
• ”Seed" or source populations;
• Ring current and its effects on energetic particles;
• Data assimilation and specification models --> for
practical applications
Mission Approach
•Simultaneous two-point
measurements by
plasmasphere
• identical spacecraft in common
orbits.
•with a slow separation in phase,
1
3
•lapping one another 4-5
times/year,
•Covering the full range of local
outer radiation times in 2 years.
belt
•Apogee of ~ 5.8 Re to sample
2
outer belt and ring current.
•Perigee of ~ 630 km to sample
inner belt.
Precession
Radial Profiles -->
Distinguish Mechanisms
•When closely spaced-->
• determine radial phase space
density gradients and discriminate
between proposed source/loss
regions and processes.
Convection
Radial
Diffusion
Local
Acceleration
Spatial Extent
•When widely separated -->
•measure spatial extent of ring
current asymmetries and wave
fields.
Identify Source Populations
•Measure ‘seed’ or source populations:
Plasma sheet
Substorm injected plasma
Pre-existing relativistic particles
Solar Energetic Particles.
•and accelerated populations
simultaneously.
4. Selected Investigations
• NASA/HQ selected the following experiments:
– ECT (Spence, Boston U.) Energetic Particle Composition
and Thermal Plasma Suite
– EMFISIS (Kletzing, U. Iowa) Electric and Magnetic Field
Instrument Suite and Integrated Science
– EFW (Wygant, U. Minnesota) Electric Field and Waves
Instrument for the NASA RBSP Mission
– RBSPICE (Lanzerotti, N.J. Inst. Technology) Radiation Belt
Storm Probes Ion Composition Experiment
• NASA entered into a partnership agreement with the NRO, who
will supply:
– RPS (Groves) Relativistic Proton Spectrometer
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes:
Particle Experiments
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes: Field and
Wave Experiments
Three Missions of Opportunity in Competitive Phase A Study
BARREL
GOLD
Robyn Millan
Richard Eastes
Dartmouth College
U. Central Florida
Balloon Array for RBSP
Relativistic Electron
Losses
Global-scale
Observations of Limb
and Disk
MORE
Daniel Baker
U. Colorado Boulder
Mission of Opportunity RadBelt
Experiment
–Final reports due September 12, 2007
–Result could augment RBSP and/or IT science.