Speaker
Description
The ESA VALIRENE Project is evaluating the performance of the IRENE models (v1.50.001) against proton and electron data from a number of different instruments, including those flown on INTEGRAL, PROBA-1, CRRES, XMM, and RBSP-A. To support this, an extensive reanalysis of the original data from these instruments has been undertaken to ensure well-calibrated, clean data are used for the comparisons. The validation of the IRENE as well as the AP8 and AE8 models against these datasets has focused primarily on the long-term mean environment for the spacecraft orbits, and long-term statistical variation of the environment as functions of McIlwain L and energy.
Comparisons have also been performed of the mean particle spectra and standard radiation effects quantities for standard spacecraft orbits, to explore the differences with using IRENE compared with more conventional models recommended by the ECSS-E-ST-10-04 space environment standard.
This paper will briefly summarise the data calibration and selection processes before presenting the model versus instrument-data and inter-model comparisons. An assessment of the relative performance of IRENE will be presented, its advantages and deficiencies, and the expected impact from adopting this model for spacecraft environment predictions. The results of the analysis includes recommendations for future IRENE model improvements, especially concerning the mean and long-term statistical variability of the electron environment.
