CubeSat: The Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb (OPAL) CubeSat Experiment

这是一项为期3年的设计、建造和运行3U立方体卫星任务的工作，名为大气边缘光学轮廓(OPAL)，旨在了解动态太阳、地磁和内部大气强迫的热层温度特征。OPAL将通过使用高灵敏度、高光谱的肢体成像器观测白天O2 A波段(接近762 nm)的发射，从90？140公里的高度测量较低的热层温度。该仪器将被安装在国家侦察办公室提供的3U殖民地2号立方体卫星中。低热层是低层和高层大气之间的重要界面，但在这一关键区域缺乏测量，阻碍了我们在理解上的进展。OPAL任务将通过提供急需的中性温度全球观测来帮助填补这一空白，这反过来将导致对导致全球、区域和地方尺度上I/T系统日常变化的物理过程的更好理解。尤其重要的是，必须测量能量如何从高纬度传播到低纬度，并量化低层大气和高层大气之间的波耦合。OPAL将直接测量中低纬度地区对地磁活动的热响应。OPAL将通过测量低热层内部波的温度特征来量化来自低热层的波的全球特征。这项任务由犹他州立大学空间动力学实验室(USU/SDL)和马里兰东岸大学(UMES)、霍克空间科学研究所(HISS)和犹他州迪克西州立学院(DSC)联合提出。Opal任务的大部分将由研究生和本科生制定和实施，并由专业人员担任导师。该计划将结合USU/SDL、UMES、HISS和DSC学生的培训和参与。物理专业的学生将在科学团队、数据分析和科学发现的发表中发挥重要作用。工程专业学生将绘制航天器和仪器设计图，开发、集成和测试硬件，并校准仪器。Opal任务也将是第一颗飞行科学高光谱成像器有效载荷的立方体卫星。高光谱成像测量对许多研究领域都非常重要，包括大气化学、海洋深度和温度、土地利用、生态学、天文学和监测。对于立方体卫星任务来说，由于成像器对立方体卫星系统的要求(功率、姿态控制、数据速率等)，这是一个具有挑战性的有效载荷，这使得这是一个高风险、高回报的项目。

This is a 3 year effort to design, construct, and operate a 3U CubeSat mission named Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb (OPAL) designed to understand the thermospheric temperature signatures of the dynamic solar, geomagnetic and internal atmospheric forcing. OPAL will measure lower thermospheric temperatures from 90?140 km altitude by observing the daytime O2 A-band (near 762nm) emission with a high-sensitivity, hyper-spectral limb imager. The instrument will be incorporated into a 3U Colony 2 CubeSat provided by the National Reconnaissance Office. The lower thermosphere is an important interface between the lower and upper atmosphere, but progress in our understanding has been hindered by a paucity of measurements in this critical region. The OPAL mission will help fill this gap by providing much needed global observations of the neutral temperatures, which in turn will lead to an improved understanding of the physical processes that are responsible for day-to-day changes in the I/T system on global, regional, and local scales. In particular, it is important to measure how energy propagates from high to lower latitudes and to quantify the wave coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere. OPAL will directly measure the thermal response at low and middle latitudes to geomagnetic activity. OPAL will quantify the global characteristics of waves from below within the lower thermosphere by measuring their temperature signatures.The mission is being proposed jointly by the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University (USU/SDL) and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences (HISS) and Dixie State College of Utah (DSC). A majority of the OPAL mission will be developed and implemented by graduate and undergraduate students with professional staff serving as mentors. The program will combine USU/SDL, UMES, HISS, and DSC student training and participation. Physics students will play a major role in the science team, data analysis, and publication of the scientific findings. Engineering students will produce spacecraft and instrument design drawings, develop, integrate and test hardware, and calibrate the instrument. The OPAL mission also would be the first cubesat to fly a scientific hyper-spectral imager payload. Hyper-spectral imaging measurements are extremely important to many areas of research, including atmospheric chemistry, ocean depth and temperature, land-use, ecology, astronomy, and surveillance. It's a challenging payload for a cubesat mission due to the requirements (power, attitude control, data rates, etc) the imager poses on the cubesat system, making this a high-risk-high-reward project.