RBSP
From ViRBO
Draft
This page contains
- Notes for development of SPASE records for RBSP.
- Additional information and links to documents related to RBSP.
- Planning for collaboration between ViRBO and RBSP
Contents |
1 Summary
Official web page: http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/
From: http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/mission/overview.php
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission is part of NASA’s Living With a Star Geospace program to explore fundamental processes that operate throughout the solar system, in particular those that generate hazardous space weather effects near the Earth and phenomena that could affect solar system exploration.
RBSP is being designed to help us understand the sun’s influence on the Earth and near-Earth space by studying the planet’s radiation belts on various scales of space and time.
Understanding the radiation belt environment and its variability has extremely important practical applications in the areas of spacecraft operations, spacecraft and spacecraft system design, mission planning, and astronaut safety.
The mission’s science objectives are to:
- Discover which processes, singly or in combination, accelerate and transport radiation belt electrons and ions and under what conditions.
- Understand and quantify the loss of radiation belt electrons and determine the balance between competing acceleration and loss processes.
- Understand how the radiation belts change in the context of geomagnetic storms.
The instruments on the two RBSP spacecraft will provide the measurements needed to characterize and quantify the processes that produce relativistic ions and electrons. They will measure the properties of charged particles that comprise the Earth’s radiation belts and the plasma waves that interact with them, the large-scale electric fields that transport them, and the magnetic field that guides them.
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw:
The fundamental processes that energize, transport, and cause the loss of charged particles operate throughout the plasma universe at locations as diverse as magnetized and un-magnetized planets, the solar wind, our Sun, and other stars. The same processes operate within our immediate environment, the inner magnetosphere – Earth’s natural particle accelerator. The Living With a Star (LWS) program’s RBSP mission will provide the in situ observations needed to obtain a comprehensive understanding of these fundamental processes. The two-year RBSP mission offers local time, altitude, and geomagnetic activity coverage sufficient to sample a wide range of energetic particle events, to identify the underlying physical processes, and to determine their relative significances and interaction modes. In addition, the mission will quantify the time-varying structure and processes of the inner magnetosphere, identify source populations, and determine when and where relevant plasma waves are generated. The knowledge gained from the RBSP mission will aid in developing both empirical and predictive models that can be used to safeguard astronauts and spacecraft in near-Earth orbit and future exploration missions to Mars and the other planets.
Discriminating between proposed interaction mechanisms, distinguishing between energetic charged particle source and loss regions, and determining the spatial extent of the various phenomena manifested in the radiation belts requires simultaneous observations over a wide range of spacecraft separations. To accomplish this task, the RBSP mission will operate two Earth-orbiting spacecraft in near-equatorial, eccentric orbits with somewhat different apogees and orbital periods to provide a variety of radial and local time separations between the spacecraft over the course of the mission. The orbits of the spacecraft must be near-equatorial to observe full particle pitch angle distributions with respect to the magnetic field within the radiation belts and to observe processes that are confined to regions near the magnetic equator. The instruments must make charged particle observations over energies ranging from those of the source population (as low as 1 eV) to those representative of the most energetic particles within the radiation belts (1 GeV). Distinguishing between source populations, identifying the predominant contributors to the ring current, and understanding wave-particle interaction modes requires ion composition measurements over energies ranging from 1 eV to 1000 keV. Understanding the transport and energization of relativistic particles within the inner magnetosphere requires observations of the slowly evolving DC electric and magnetic fields. Identification of wave-particle interaction modes that lead to both particle acceleration and loss requires observations of 3D wave electric and magnetic fields over the full range of frequencies capable of interacting with particles (nominally, 10 Hz to 12 kHz for the Earth’s inner magnetosphere). Finally, plasma densities governing the structure of the inner magnetosphere are best determined from combined observations of low energy (<1 keV) ions, the spacecraft potential, and plasma wave resonances to 400 kHz.
2 Instruments
2.1 ECT
Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT)
PI: http://virbo.org/meta/viewdata.do?docname=Harlan.E.Spence
http://www.bu.edu/csp/RBSP-ECT/
http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/instruments/instruments_ect.php
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw:
The Energetic Particle, Composition and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT). This investigation will determine the spatial, temporal, and pitch angle distributions of electrons and ions over a broad and continuous range of energies. It is designed to differentiate the causes of particle acceleration mechanisms, understand the production of plasma waves, determine how the inner magnetospheric plasma environment controls particle acceleration and loss, and characterize source particle populations and their transport. The investigation will provide a complete complement of data analysis techniques, case studies, theory, and modeling, along with expertise to define particle acceleration mechanisms, radiation belt particle enhancement and loss, and determine how the near-Earth environment controls those acceleration and loss processes.
2.2 EMFISIS
Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS)
PI: http://virbo.org/meta/viewdata.do?docname=Craig.A.Kletzing
http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/instruments/instruments_emfisis.php
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw
This investigation will provide the observations needed to determine the origin of important plasma wave classes and their role in particle acceleration and loss processes. The investigation will also quantify the evolution of the magnetic field that defines the basic coordinate system controlling the structure of the radiation belts and the storm-time ring current. EMFISIS will provide calculations of on board spectra, including spectral matrices, making it possible to determine wave normal angles and Poynting fluxes for the plasma waves of interest and providing information for wave mode identification and propagation modeling which are essential for understanding and modeling of radiation particle physics. EMFISIS will also measure the upper hybrid frequency, permitting accurate determination of the electron plasma density required for analysis of wave propagation and instability growth rates.
2.3 EFW
Electric Field and Waves Suite (EFW)
http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/instruments/instruments_efw.php
PI: http://virbo.org/meta/viewdata.do?docname=John.R.Wygant
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw:
The investigation will provide the observations needed to understand the electric field properties associated with particle energization, scattering and transport, and the role of the large-scale convection electric field in modifying the structure of the inner magnetosphere. EFW measurements of the spacecraft potential will be used to infer the ambient plasma density.
2.4 RBSPICE
Radiation Belt Storm Probes Ion Composition Experiment (RBSPICE)
PI: http://virbo.org/meta/viewdata.do?docname=Louis.J.Lanzerotti
http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/instruments/instruments_rbspice.php
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw:
This investigation will provide observations that accurately resolve the ring current pressure distribution needed to understand how the inner magnetosphere changes during geomagnetic storms and how that storm environment supplies and supports the acceleration and loss processes involved in creating and sustaining hazardous radiation particle populations.
2.5 RPS
Relativistic Proton Spectrometer (RPS)
http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/instruments/instruments_rps.php
From section 2.1 of https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&th=12730565cc680049&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw:
This investigation will determine the upper range of proton fluxes in the inner magnetosphere and develop and validate models of the Van Allen radiation belts.
