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

这是一项为期3年的努力，旨在设计、建造和运行一个名为大气边缘光学剖面（OPAL）的3U立方体卫星任务，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将测量温度较低的热层温度从90？利用高灵敏度、高光谱边缘成像仪观测白天O2 a波段（近762nm）发射。该仪器将被并入由国家侦察办公室提供的3U殖民地2立方体卫星。低层热层是低层大气和高层大气之间的重要界面，但由于缺乏对这一关键区域的测量，我们对其理解的进展受到阻碍。OPAL任务将通过提供非常需要的全球中性温度观测来帮助填补这一空白，这反过来将导致对负责全球、区域和地方尺度的I/T系统日常变化的物理过程的更好理解。特别重要的是测量能量如何从高纬度向低纬度传播，并量化低层和高层大气之间的波耦合。OPAL将直接测量低纬度和中纬度地区对地磁活动的热响应。OPAL将通过测量其温度特征来量化来自下层热层的波的全球特征。该任务是由犹他州立大学空间动力学实验室（USU/SDL）和马里兰大学东岸（UMES）、霍克空间科学研究所（HISS）和犹他州迪克西州立学院（DSC）联合提出的。该项目的大部分任务将由研究生和本科生制定和执行，并由专业工作人员担任导师。该计划将结合USU/SDL， UMES， HISS和DSC学生的培训和参与。物理系学生将在科学团队、数据分析和科学发现的发表中发挥主要作用。工程专业的学生将制作航天器和仪器设计图纸，开发、集成和测试硬件，并校准仪器。OPAL任务也将是第一个携带科学高光谱成像仪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。由于成像仪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，使其成为一个高风险、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.