This is an ongoing ESA PRODEX project, the overall objective of this project is a proof-of-concept that a VLF transmitter, with a magnetic loop/solenoid antenna on a LEO satellite, is capable of transmitting wave power in the Very-Low-Frequency and at an amplitude range comparable to the typically observed peak power of the naturally occurring whistler-mode waves (whistler, chorus, hiss) in...
As humanity prepares for a return to the lunar surface, understanding and monitoring the lunar radiation environment is more important than ever. Despite the renewed focus on missions, the lunar radiation environment has only been measured a handful of times—mainly during flybys (Lunar reconnaissance orbiter and Chandrayaan-1) and lander missions (chang’E-4 Lander). These data are spatially...
Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) are a good candidate when designing the readout for modern scintillator detectors for ionizing particles, both for space-borne and Earth-based devices, due to their lower operating voltage and power consumption. A major issue, however, is that high radiation environments may degrade SiPM performance due to defects accumulating within the silicon crystal lattice....
Space environment is a mixed environment where ions, protons and electrons coexist, with energies from a few keV to a few hundred MeV. Most radiation monitors used to measure fluxes in the space environment are based on solid-state detectors (SSD). These instruments use the total energy deposited in a sensitive volume by a particle to identify its nature and incident energy. However, protons...