Science Goals and Overview of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) Suite on NASA’s Van Allen Probes Mission
By Harlan Spence, G. Reeves, D. N. Baker, J. Bernard Blake, M. Bolton, Sébastien Bourdarie, Anthony A. Chan, Seth G. Claudepierre, J. Clemmons, J. Cravens and 27 more. Space Science Reviews, 2013
528 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)-Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) suite contains an innovative complement of particle instruments to ensure the highest quality measurements ever made in the inner magnetosphere and radiation belts. The coordinated RBSP-ECT particle measurements, analyzed in combination with fields and waves observations and state-of-the-art theory and modeling, are necessary for understanding the acceleration, global distribution, and variability of radiation belt electrons and ions, key science objectives of NASA’s Living With a Star program and the Van Allen Probes mission. The RBSP-ECT suite consists of three highly-coordinated instruments: the Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS), the Helium Oxygen Proton Electron (HOPE) sensor, and the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT). Collectively they cover, continuously, the full electron and ion spectra from one eV to 10’s of MeV with sufficient energy resolution, pitch angle coverage and resolution, and with composition measurements in the critical energy range up to 50 keV and also from a few to 50 MeV/nucleon. All three instruments are based on measurement techniques proven in the radiation belts. The instruments use those proven techniques along with innovative new designs, optimized for operation in the most extreme conditions in order to provide unambiguous separation of ions and electrons and clean energy responses even in the presence of extreme penetrating background environments. The design, fabrication and operation of ECT spaceflight instrumentation in the harsh radiation belt environment ensure that particle measurements have the fidelity needed for closure in answering key mission science questions. ECT instrument details are provided in companion papers in this same issue. In this paper, we describe the science objectives of the RBSP-ECT instrument suite on the Van Allen Probe spacecraft within the context of the overall mission objectives, indicate how the characteristics of the instruments satisfy the requirements to achieve these objectives, provide information about science data collection and dissemination, and conclude with a description of some early mission results.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Citations in the corpus
- Excitation of poloidal standing Alfvén waves through drift resonance wave‐particle interaction (2013, background): “…Mission, Space Science Reviews, 2013, in press], Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science [Kletzing et al., 2013], and Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite [Blake et al., 2013; Funsten et al., 2013; Spence et al., 2013] instruments onboard RBSP.”
- Effect of EMIC waves on relativistic and ultrarelativistic electron populations: Ground‐based and Van Allen Probes observations (2014, methodology): “To look at the dynamics of the ultrarelativistic electron population, we used electron flux data from the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT), within the Energetic particle Composition and Thermal (ECT) suite [Spence et al., 2013].”
- Space Weather Effects in the Earth’s Radiation Belts (2018, background): “…Electron–Proton Telescope (REPT) (Baker et al. 2013b) instruments of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) suites (Spence et al. 2013) on the Van Allen Probes, have studied the relation between radiation belt electron phase space density (PSD) and solar wind…”
- Earth's Van Allen Radiation Belts: From Discovery to the Van Allen Probes Era (2019, methodology): “…A 4.2 MeV flux measured by the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) on Van Allen Probes (Baker, Kanekal, Hoxie, Batiste, et al., 2013; Spence et al., 2013) is time shifted to overlay with Probe B measurements in L*. Probe B at higher L* observed flux increase by over 2 orders of…”
- Radiation belt electron acceleration by chorus waves during the 17 March 2013 storm (2014, methodology): “…are obtained from both the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) [Baker et al., 2012] and the Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) instruments [Blake et al., 2013], which are elements of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma instrument suite [Spence et al., 2013].”
- An unusual enhancement of low‐frequency plasmaspheric hiss in the outer plasmasphere associated with substorm‐injected electrons (2013, background): “Note that since electron pitch angle distributions at energies below ~22 keV are not available (because Helium Oxygen Proton Electron [Funsten et al., 2013; Spence et al., 2013] was still in commissioning) during this event, wave growth rates calculated above ~137Hz (0.02 fce) are not shown.”
- Energetic electron precipitation associated with pulsating aurora: EISCAT and Van Allen Probe observations (2015, background): “…Science (EMFISIS) [Kletzing et al., 2013] and the electron energy spectrum from Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT)/Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron (HOPE) and Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) [Spence et al., 2013; Funsten et al., 2013; Blake et al., 2013].”
- Particle Dynamics in the Earth's Radiation Belts: Review of Current Research and Open Questions (2020, methodology): “…dependent on the local ion plasma composition (H+, O+, and He+), which is important to accurately compute the wave‐particle interactions, for instance, based on measured local properties such as measured by the HOPE instrument (Funsten et al., 2013; Spence et al., 2013) of the Van Allen Probes.”
- Source and seed populations for relativistic electrons: Their roles in radiation belt changes (2015, background): “…of electrons in various selected energy ranges from ~5 keV (top) to 5.6MeV (bottom) for the period 25 August through 4 October 2014, from the Van Allen Probes Radiation Belt Storm Probes Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (RBSP-ECT) instrument suite [Spence et al., 2013].”
- Time domain structures: What and where they are, what they do, and how they are made (2015, background): “Figure 2b gives the electric field frequency spectrum, and Figure 2c gives nine Helium, Oxygen, Proton, Electron plasma spectrometer (HOPE) detector electron number fluxes from 26 eV to 41 keV [Spence et al., 2013].”