Post on 01-Jan-2020
© 2013 The Aerospace Corporation
RPS Operations and Science Status
J. Mazur, P. O’Brien, M. Looper, M. Redding, J. George, and B. Blake The Aerospace Corporation Space Science Applications Laboratory joseph.mazur@aero.org 571-307-3915 14 August2013
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RPS Health Summary
• Both instruments are fully functional with no performance issues:
– Thermal design has sufficient margin – Instrument voltages and currents are nominal – All 12 silicon detectors and signal processing electronics operating
normally – MCP/PMT gains remain stable
• Real-time SOC monitoring of performance detected only one out-of-
limit housekeeping violation (+5 volt current on RPS-A) on 8/1/2013; no impact on health or safety
• Only one instance of single fast pulses detected on the 1PPS and RPS command lines: RPS-B on 9/5/2012
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RPS Thermal History
• Mission histories of the DC/DC converter temperatures • Spacecraft deck temperature is lower on –A than –B
noon/midnight orbit
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RPS Performance Example
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Topics for RPS Publications
Topic Status & comments Thick-shielding radiation dose after 1 year of the Van Allen Probes mission
Draft ~50% complete (most complete of all topics to date); aiming for publication in Space Weather Journal
Inner belt proton gradients
Analysis underway; interim product is a Fall 2013 AGU paper; aiming for publication in GRL
GCR proton energy spectrum and access to the inner magnetosphere
Analysis underway; interim product is a Fall 2013 AGU paper
40-year comparison of inner belt proton intensity
Analysis just begun; candidate for GRL
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Response Functions
• The figure shows calculated RPS responses of 20 energy channels to incident protons
• Ideal responses have single peaks at the correct incident energies
• Because of the penetrating protons, some channels respond to backwards-going particles as well
Bow-Tie Analysis Example
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This plot shows the effective detector area as a function of incident energy and angle, for virtual channel P1
Bow-Tie Results
Backward protons
Backward FOV
Forward FOV
Bowtie Center Energy Bowtie Energy Bandwidth
Forward protons Ideal response
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79.7 MeV 273.7 MeV
936.8 MeV 1395.2 MeV
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RPS Science and Applications Examples
• RPS dose rate behind ~540 mils • 12-hour averages
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RPS Science and Applications Examples
• An early observable of inner belt protons was the East-West flux asymmetry (e.g. Lencheck & Singer 1962; Heckman & Nakano 1963)
• The atmospheric density gradient that controls the particle loss yields a flux gradient
• Ginet et al. 2007 is the most recent study of the gradient from 500 to 1600 km altitude
W. Hess, The Radiation Belt and Magnetosphere, 1968
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A Typical Day: RPS >61 MeV Protons
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Flux Gradient L=1.23
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Flux Gradient L=1.87
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Flux Gradient L=2.56
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Proton Gyroradius
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RPS Cross Calibration • PROBA-V (Project for On
Board Autonomy-Vegitation) launched 7 May 2013 into a 820 km sun-synchronous polar orbit
• Energetic Particle Telescope (EPT) developed at UCL-Belgium (Mathias Cyamukungu PI)
• Protons 4-300 MeV
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RPS Cross Calibration
• OV1-20P orbit: 136x1932 km 92 degree inclination
• One of the payloads was an Aerospace Cherenkov counter with a fast coincidence scintillator pair (12 nsec resolving time) to define the event geometry
• The Cherenkov payload operated only in the inner belt for 10 days during the Nixon administration
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RPS Data Products Status
• The RPS team has been working towards delivery on the higher-order
data products that have been part of the RPS plan since PDR • Our progress is consistent with impacts from higher priority analyses
for programs and relatively limited staff and budget • Recent milestones:
– We recently reached a consensus within our small team on a set of energy identification and background rejection algorithms (required for level 1)
– We are now testing our angle-dependent flux conversion algorithms (required for level 2)
• We will provide quick-look products on request while we focus on our production codes
RPS Data Products Data Level
Name Contents Latency Reprocessing Status
0 (L0) Level 0 Data
RPS PTP/CCSDS packets (decoded in CDF version, includes space weather data)
1-3 days By MOC Done
1 (L1) Level 1 Data
Nearly all L0 data, UTC, energy/photon deposits, singles and coincidence rates, s/c location, RPS boresight vector, magnetic field vector, dead times (including quota effects), minimal OPQ coordinates
L0 + 1-3 days
Daily up to L0+5 days, and on-demand
Quick look code mature, developing production code
2 (L2) Energy Spectra
UTC, flux versus energy spectrum (once per 5 degrees rotation), pitch-angle and full magnetic coordinates (e.g., Lm, MLT, I, Blocal, Bequ, Φ) of RPS boresight in OPQ and TS models
L1 + 1-2 days
Daily up to L0+7 days and on-demand
Developing quick look
3 (L3) Energy-Angle Spectra
UTC, energy-pitch angle spectrum (once per spin and once per minute), full magnetic coordinates in OPQ, and TS models
L2 + 1-2 days
Daily up to L0+10 days and on-demand
4 (L4) Global Maps
UTC, flux vs E/αeq/Lm, flux vs E/K/Φ, PSD vs M/K/Φ maps (once per orbit leg) in multilple field models
L3 + 1-2 days
Daily up to L0+14 days and on-demand
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Summary
• RPS performance remains nominal and both instruments are returning on our customer’s investment in exploration of the inner belt
• We have managed to divert some energy towards publications that address new inner belt science and at least one application topic
• Cross-calibration includes reaching back in time and across to concurrent missions such as PROBA-V
• Still waiting for an intense “standard candle” SEP event
© 2013 The Aerospace Corporation
Backup charts
Virtual Observatory
Nominal Mission Data Flow
MOC
RPS SOC (Inside Aerospace Firewall)
RPS FTP site hosted @ ViRBO
Scientific Community & General Public
Instrument Commands (SSL)
Level 0 Instrument & Mission Data (SFTP)
Level 0, Processed, and Supporting Data (FTP)
(FTP, VxO API)
Real-Time & Playback L0 (SSL, TCP/IP)
Console
Spacecraft
Science Data Portal, Other
SOCs
Ancillary Data (e.g., L*)
(Protocol TBD)
Backend
RPS SOC Console Status
• Front-end interface of RPS SOC to MOC is stable
• GSEOS links and procedures have been periodically updated to provide improved automation
• Remaining development supports internal displays for easier remote status monitoring
Console
Stand-Alone Predict Module
MO
C
(SFTP)
L0 Data, MOC
Products
SPICE
RPS SOC (Inside Aerospace Firewall)
Predict Orbit, MET/UTC, L, Rates
GSE
Manual Commanding
Status Displays
Command Validation
RB
SP
GS
EO
S
Automatic Command Scheduling
Dead-Man: Timer & File Generation
Download time & orbit kernels
Commands, TM
(SSL)
Command, Event Logs
Rem
ote
Acc
ess
with
in A
eros
pace
IRBEM AE9/AP9
Backend
Maintain SSL Tunnels
(Shared File System)
Dead-Man File, Alert/Warning Messages, Command Logs
(Local File System)
MET/UTC, L, Rates
Done In Progress
RPS SOC Backend Status
• Level 0 PTP, CDF, and ASCII routinely posted to ViRBO
• Quick-Look Level 1 files generated automatically
• Completing production Level 1 CDFs
• Adding support for TT2000
• Developing level 2 quick look code
Backend MOC
RPS FTP Site (@ ViRBO)
Virtual Observatory
Level 0 Instrument & Mission Data (SFTP)
Level 0, Processed, and Supporting Data (SFTP)
(FTP)
(VxO API)
Console
Science Data Portal, Other
SOCs Ancillary Data (e.g.,
L*) (Protocol
TBD)
Scientific Community & General Public
Get New External Files
Initiate Scheduled (Re)processing
PTP
to L
0 C
DF
L0 to
L1
CD
F
L1 to
L2
CD
F
L2 to
L3
CD
F
L3 to
L4
CD
F
Apply EMFISIS MAG
Calibration
CD
F to
AS
CII
CD
F to
HD
F5
Mon
itor C
onso
le’s
D
ead-
Man
File
IRB
EM
SP
ICE
Interpolate K/L* from ECT SOC
Email Notifications,
Warnings
Data volume, contents, values
Backup Server
RPS SOC (Inside Aerospace Firewall)
Generate OPQ Coordinates &
Field
Predict/Evaluate Orbit, Attitude,
MET/UTC
Forw
ard
Mes
sage
s
Instrument State
Orbit & Cal Comparison
Displays
Validation
Com
man
d Lo
gs
Done Partially Complete
RPS Data at ViRBO
• http://virbo.org/RBSP/RPS • Level 0 data only, for now
– PTP, CDF, ASCII • Updated nightly,
automatically • Will host browse plots and
other interactive products when higher level products are ready