© 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

2

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

3

RPS Thermal History

• Mission histories of the DC/DC converter temperatures • Spacecraft deck temperature is lower on –A than –B

noon/midnight orbit

4

RPS Performance Example

5

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

6

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

13

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