Session
Session VI: FJR Student Competition
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
In-situ measurements of energetic particle precipitation in the near-Earth space environment are essential for understanding the governing physical processes responsible for this precipitation, as well as to elucidate the possible impacts of space radiation on the Earth’s atmosphere. In this study, we present the design of a novel miniaturized detector to measure energetic electron precipitation. The detector is one of the instruments to be flown on-board the Canadian RADiation Impacts on Climate and Atmospheric Loss Satellite (RADICALS) mission, which is a low-Earth orbiting satellite planned to launch in 2026/2027. The detector is optimized to measure high energy electron microburst precipitation, which is believed to be caused by bursty and short timescale (< 1 second) scattering of electrons from the Van Allen belts into the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite their short timescales, microbursts are thought to cause a significant loss of energetic electrons from the Van Allen belts during geomagnetic storms and also considerably impact the atmospheric chemistry through the generation of NOx/HOx which in-turn can cause Ozone destruction in the mesosphere and upper stratosphere. However, because of limitations in current space instrumentation pertaining to time resolution and energy range, measurements made to date have not been able to conclusively answer many open questions regarding microburst precipitation. In this study, we introduce the RADICALS mission concept with emphasis on energetic particle precipitation (and in particular microburst) measurements. The detector (referred to as the Microburst Detector (MBD)) to be flown on-board the RADICALS mission, aims to obtain high temporal resolution in-situ measurements of microburst precipitation over a broad energy range. The design of the MBD is explained in detail, which is a Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (Silicon Photomultiplier) based scintillation detector that can resolve sub-relativistic and relativistic microbursts with energies between 200 keV and 3 MeV at 10 ms cadence. The MBD has been designed with a modular architecture enabling use on future CubeSats, Balloons, Sounding Rockets and Small Satellite missions. The initial version of this detector has also been developed as part of the Payload for Energetic Particle Precipitation Education and Research (PEPPER-X) project, which is the first Canadian student team experiment selected to launch on-board the NASA RockSat-X sounding rocket mission in August 2024. In this paper, we also summarize the detector design and calibration tests performed for the sounding rocket test flight. Successful operation on this sounding rocket platform would raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the detector and electronics, paving the way for its use on-board the RADICALS mission and other small satellite missions.
Miniaturized Scintillation Based Detector for Characterizing Energetic Electron Precipitation
Utah State University, Logan, UT
In-situ measurements of energetic particle precipitation in the near-Earth space environment are essential for understanding the governing physical processes responsible for this precipitation, as well as to elucidate the possible impacts of space radiation on the Earth’s atmosphere. In this study, we present the design of a novel miniaturized detector to measure energetic electron precipitation. The detector is one of the instruments to be flown on-board the Canadian RADiation Impacts on Climate and Atmospheric Loss Satellite (RADICALS) mission, which is a low-Earth orbiting satellite planned to launch in 2026/2027. The detector is optimized to measure high energy electron microburst precipitation, which is believed to be caused by bursty and short timescale (< 1 second) scattering of electrons from the Van Allen belts into the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite their short timescales, microbursts are thought to cause a significant loss of energetic electrons from the Van Allen belts during geomagnetic storms and also considerably impact the atmospheric chemistry through the generation of NOx/HOx which in-turn can cause Ozone destruction in the mesosphere and upper stratosphere. However, because of limitations in current space instrumentation pertaining to time resolution and energy range, measurements made to date have not been able to conclusively answer many open questions regarding microburst precipitation. In this study, we introduce the RADICALS mission concept with emphasis on energetic particle precipitation (and in particular microburst) measurements. The detector (referred to as the Microburst Detector (MBD)) to be flown on-board the RADICALS mission, aims to obtain high temporal resolution in-situ measurements of microburst precipitation over a broad energy range. The design of the MBD is explained in detail, which is a Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (Silicon Photomultiplier) based scintillation detector that can resolve sub-relativistic and relativistic microbursts with energies between 200 keV and 3 MeV at 10 ms cadence. The MBD has been designed with a modular architecture enabling use on future CubeSats, Balloons, Sounding Rockets and Small Satellite missions. The initial version of this detector has also been developed as part of the Payload for Energetic Particle Precipitation Education and Research (PEPPER-X) project, which is the first Canadian student team experiment selected to launch on-board the NASA RockSat-X sounding rocket mission in August 2024. In this paper, we also summarize the detector design and calibration tests performed for the sounding rocket test flight. Successful operation on this sounding rocket platform would raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the detector and electronics, paving the way for its use on-board the RADICALS mission and other small satellite missions.
