Speaker
Mr
Dhiren Kataria
(University College London)
Description
Space weather effects play an important role in geostationary orbit as the orbit falls within the magnetosphere bordering the outer radiation belts and the environment is strongly affected by changes originating on the Sun and associated geomagnetic activity. This is an important application orbit with a large number of telecoms satellites and monitoring the local space environment is important both for the health of host spacecraft as well as providing valuable inputs for space weather. Due to the nature of the magnetospheric dynamics in this orbit, the plasma environment in particular is highly variable and plays an important role, with the dominant impact being on spacecraft charging. The hot plasma environment monitor (HOPE-M) is a miniaturised analyser being developed under ESA contract. HOPE-M is designed to monitor the plasma environment and provide key inputs to include a measure of the spacecraft potential and bulk plasma properties, i.e., number density, temperature and if resources permit, the bulk velocity and heat flux.
The objective of this activity is to breadboard a number of key technologies required for the development of HOPE-M focusing in particular on critical elements of a miniaturised analyser which will perform electron and ion spectrometry in the range 30eV-30 keV. The activity will result in the production of a breadboard with a flexible design capable of providing both environment monitoring functions as wells as enhanced scientific performance. The electrostatic analyser is based on the Charged Particle Spectrometer (ChaPS) built for the UK’s TechDemoSat mission and is designed to make simultaneous measurements of the energy distribution functions of electrons and ions. This paper will present instrument requirements for a hot plasma monitor, present details and status of HOPE-M and some results from the ChaPS instrument due to be launched in June 2014.
Primary author
Mr
Dhiren Kataria
(University College London)
Co-authors
Prof.
Andrew Fazakerley
(Mullard Space Science Laboratory)
David Rodgers
(ESA)
Dr
Philip Ireland
(SEA)
Dr
Richard Cole
(Mullard Space Science Laboratory)
