RAPID: ANDESITE Cubesat

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This grant supports the completion and launch of the ANDESITE CubeSat constellation mission consisting of 9 spacecraft. These CubeSat will make spatially-resolved measurements of electric currents in the ionosphere, which are a critical pathway of energy flow from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere. The research effort will demonstrate that critical scientific measurements can made using CubeSat constellations for use in space weather monitoring. The grant will support a junior scientist in the community and provide education and training for graduate and undergraduate students.The ANDESITE CubeSats will fly through the auroral zones with small inter-spacecraft separations (10km) to study the small-scale spatial structure of Magnetosphere- Ionosphere coupling. The ANDESITE mission is manifested on the Rocket Labs Electron rocket for a launch into a near polar orbit. Once in space, the 6U bus will deploy 8 pico-satellites to fly in a constellation communicating over a mesh network. Each element in the constellation will make a 3-axis magnetic field measurement which will be used to identify the local current density. The mission serves as a pathfinder to demonstrate the use of small spacecraft constellations with small separations for use in space weather monitoring. This research will test, launch, and operate the spacecraft constellation on orbit, and perform data analysis.