Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment
| CSSWE | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Type: | Research satellite |
| Country: |
 United States
|
| Operator: | University of Colorado at Boulder |
| COSPAR-ID : | 2012-048D |
| Mission dates | |
| Dimensions: | 4 kg |
| Size: | 3U- CubeSat |
| Begin: | September 13, 2012, 21:39 UTC |
| Starting place: | Vandenberg , SLC-3E |
| Launcher: | Atlas V (401) AV-033 |
| Status: | in orbit, active |
| Orbit data | |
| Rotation time : | 97.19 min |
| Orbit inclination : | 64.6 ° |
| Apogee height : | 777 km |
| Perigee height : | 472 km |
Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment ( CSSWE ) was the sixth CubeSat deployment sponsored by the American National Science Foundation . The satellite was built by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder under the guidance of experts from LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics). The CSSWE project is a joint effort between the Aerospace Engineering Sciences division of the University of Colorado and the LASP.
The project leaders were Xinlin Li and Scott Palo. The project manager was Lauren Blum, the systems engineer was David Gerhardt, and Quintin Schiller was responsible for the device technology.
CSSWE was launched on September 13, 2012 with an Atlas V launcher from the United Launch Alliance as part of NASA 's ELaNa launch initiative. The CSSWE team publishes its scientific results and makes them available for download.
Mission objectives
The goal of CSSWE is to study space weather from a near-Earth orbit (480 km × 780 km).
In particular, CSSWE is working in conjunction with concurrent missions such as the Van Allen Probes satellites, a balloon experiment BARREL (Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses), and the SAMPEX research satellite to answer the following questions:
- How does the position, the size and the frequency of the solar flares affect the time, duration and energy spectrum of the solar energy-rich particles reaching the earth?
- How the spectrum and dynamics of Earth's Van Allen Belt release electrons.
Scientific equipment
CSSWE's only scientific instrument is the REPTile (Relativistic Electron and Proton Telescope integrated little experiment) and serves the purposes of the satellite.
It is a scaled-down version of the relativistic Electron and Proton Telescope (REPT) instrument that is part of the equipment of the Van Allen Probes satellite. REPTile fulfills the operational goals by measuring electrons from 0.58 to> 3.8 megaelectron volts (MeV) and protons from 8 to 40 MeV.
The CubeSat also carries a magnetometer to determine the orientation of the instruments in relation to the earth's magnetic field.
begin
The launch took place with an Atlas V 401 on September 13, 2012 from Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3 .
The NROL-36 premium payload is a military satellite owned by the National Reconnaissance Office . Eleven CubeSats were on the launcher as secondary payloads. The CubeSats were in eight PPOD dispensers. Four of the CubeSats were launched as part of NASA's ELaNa program (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites):
- CSSWE (University of Colorado - Boulder),
- CINEMA 1 (University of California - Berkeley et al.)
- CXBN (Morehead State University)
- CP5 (California Polytechnic University)
The remaining seven were:
- Aeneas (University of Southern California),
- 2 × SMDC-ONE (US Army),
- STARE-A (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory),
- 3 x AeroCube-4 (Aerospace Corporation).
Results
Two hours after the satellite was released from the launcher, the telemetry beacon was received for the first time by a radio amateur using the amateur radio call sign DK3WN. The satellite was commissioned and switched to science mode on October 5th. After three months, on January 5, 2013, the mission was completely successful. CSSWE remains in operation (as of August 18, 2014), with scientific data still being transmitted. The first scientific results were presented in 2012 and 2013 at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA and published in journals such as the Geophysical Review Letters and the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Individual evidence
- ^ NSF Award details
- ↑ University of Colorado Press Release ( Memento of the original from May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Tiny CU-Boulder satellite may launch as early as Aug. 14. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 12, 2015 ; accessed on January 13, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ ULA NROL-36 Launch Highlights ( Memento of the original from December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ CSSWE website download page
- ↑ a b Li, X., S. Palo, R. Kohnert, L. Blum, D. Gerhardt, Q. Schiller, and S. Califf (2013), Small mission accomplished by students - big impact on space weather research, Space Weather , Accepted, doi : 10.1002 / swe.20025 .
- ↑ Li, X., S. Palo, and R. Kohnert (2011), Small Space Weather Research Mission Designed Fully by Students, Space Weather , 9, S04006, doi : 10.1029 / 2011SW000668 .
- ↑ Van Allen Probes Instrument Suites ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Blum, L. and Q. Schiller (2012), Characterization and testing of an energetic particle telescope for a CubeSat platform, Proceedings of the AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, Frank J. Redd Student Scholarship Competition, SSC12-VIII-4
- ↑ Schiller, Q. and A. Mahendrakumar (2010), REPTile: a miniaturized detector for a CubeSat mission to measure relativistic particles in near-Earth space, Proceedings of the AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, Frank J. Redd Student Scholarship Competition , SSC10-VIII-1
- ↑ Li, X., S. Palo, R. Kohnert, D. Gerhardt, L. Blum, Q. Schiller, D. Turner, W. Tu, N. Sheiko, and CS Cooper (2012), Colorado student space weather experiment : Differential flux measurements of energetic particles in a highly inclined low Earth orbit, in Dynamics of the Earth's Radiation Belts and Inner Magnetosphere, Geophys. Monogr. Ser., Vol. 199, edited by D. Summers, et al., Pp. 385-404, AGU, Washington, DC, doi : 10.1029 / 2012GM001313 .
- ↑ ULA Launch Press Release ( Memento of the original from December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ NRO Launch Press Release ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ NROL-36 2012 CubeSat Workshop Presentation
- ↑ RBSP 2012 AGU Presentation List
- ↑ Blum, LW, Q. Schiller, X. Li, R. Millan, A. Halford, and L. Woodger (2013), New conjunctive CubeSat and balloon measurements to quantify rapid energetic electron precipitation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 5833-5837, doi : 10.1002 / 2013GL058546 .
- ↑ Schiller, Q., X. Li, L. Blum, W. Tu, DL Turner, and JB Blake (2014), A nonstorm time enhancement of relativistic electrons in the outer radiation belt, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, doi : 10.1002 / 2013GL058485 .
- ↑ Li, X., et al. (2013), First results from CSSWE CubeSat: Characteristics of relativistic electrons in the near-Earth environment during the October 2012 magnetic storms, J. Geophys. Res.Space Physics, 118, doi : 10.1002 / 2013JA019342 .
