RAPID: ANDESITE Cubesat

这笔赠款用于支持完成和发射由9个航天器组成的ANTIGTE CubeSat星座使命。这些立方体卫星将对电离层中的电流进行空间分辨测量，电离层是能量从磁层流入电离层的关键路径。研究工作将表明，可利用立方体卫星星座进行关键的科学测量，用于空间气象监测。这笔赠款将用于资助社区中的一名初级科学家，并为研究生和本科生提供教育和培训，ANTROTE CubeSats将以较小的航天器间距（10公里）飞越极光区，以研究磁层-电离层耦合的小尺度空间结构。ANTROTE使命体现在火箭实验室的电子火箭上，用于发射到近极轨道。一旦进入太空，6 U总线将部署8颗微微卫星，通过网状网络进行通信。星座中的每个元件将进行3轴磁场测量，该测量将用于识别局部电流密度。该使命是示范使用间隔小的小型航天器星座进行空间气象监测的探路者。这项研究将在轨道上测试、发射和操作航天器星座，并进行数据分析。

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.