Session
Weekday Session 2: Missions at Scale
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
The HelioSwarm Mission will transform our understanding of space plasma turbulence by being the first-of-its-kind simultaneous, multiscale observatory comprising multiple spacecraft. HelioSwarm was competitively selected under the Heliophysics Explorers Program 2019 Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) Announcement of Opportunity. The central powered-ESPA Hub spacecraft is co-orbited by eight SmallSat Node spacecraft, together moving through a High Earth Orbit to obtain data in various solar wind regimes. The mission architecture is that of hub-and-spoke, with the larger hub serving as a communications relay between the Nodes and DSN. Mission operations, management, and technical oversight are provided by NASA Ames Research Center; the spacecraft are provided by Northrop Grumman and BCT. The instrument suite includes foreign-contributed and US payloads, all under the oversight of University of New Hampshire (which is also the Principal Investigator's home institution and Science Operations Center). The mission timeline from launch through conclusion of the one-year science phase is provided along with a summarized concept of operations, with particular emphasis on placing the Nodes in their proper relative orbit loops to form this geometry needed for science collection at apogee. A combination of legacy tools and custom-created swarm analysis tools are used to design the swarm and sort and visualize the collected science data and telemetry in context. Finally, an exploration of the pathfinding nature of HelioSwarm and some implications for future large scientific swarms is offered.
HelioSwarm: The Swarm is the Observatory
Utah State University, Logan, UT
The HelioSwarm Mission will transform our understanding of space plasma turbulence by being the first-of-its-kind simultaneous, multiscale observatory comprising multiple spacecraft. HelioSwarm was competitively selected under the Heliophysics Explorers Program 2019 Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) Announcement of Opportunity. The central powered-ESPA Hub spacecraft is co-orbited by eight SmallSat Node spacecraft, together moving through a High Earth Orbit to obtain data in various solar wind regimes. The mission architecture is that of hub-and-spoke, with the larger hub serving as a communications relay between the Nodes and DSN. Mission operations, management, and technical oversight are provided by NASA Ames Research Center; the spacecraft are provided by Northrop Grumman and BCT. The instrument suite includes foreign-contributed and US payloads, all under the oversight of University of New Hampshire (which is also the Principal Investigator's home institution and Science Operations Center). The mission timeline from launch through conclusion of the one-year science phase is provided along with a summarized concept of operations, with particular emphasis on placing the Nodes in their proper relative orbit loops to form this geometry needed for science collection at apogee. A combination of legacy tools and custom-created swarm analysis tools are used to design the swarm and sort and visualize the collected science data and telemetry in context. Finally, an exploration of the pathfinding nature of HelioSwarm and some implications for future large scientific swarms is offered.
