FIREBIRD (Focused Investigations of Relativistic Burst Intensity, Range and Dynamics) is an NSF f... more FIREBIRD (Focused Investigations of Relativistic Burst Intensity, Range and Dynamics) is an NSF funded CubeSat specifically designed to study electron microbursts. Microbursts are short-lived (~100ms) bursts of electron precipitation from the Earth’s radiation belts to the atmosphere. Each FIREBIRD mission (launched December 2013, and January 2015, respectively) consisted of a pair of CubeSats which slowly separated over the course of the mission to measure bursts at a variety of spatial scale sizes.
In this poster we make an initial presentation of particle data from a winter 2008 sounding rocke... more In this poster we make an initial presentation of particle data from a winter 2008 sounding rocket compaign studying ionospheric outflow in the cusp region. The rocket was launched on January 18, 2008 at 0730 UT from the Andoya Rocket Range in Norway, reaching an apogee of 1467 km over the Eiscat Svalbard Radar. The payload instrumentation shows active and
Recent technological developments have enabled a CubeSat-based targeted science investigation to ... more Recent technological developments have enabled a CubeSat-based targeted science investigation to unravel a mysterious process that results in the Earth being bombarded by relativistic electrons. The Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD) mission is an-NSF funded collaboration carried out by Montana State University, the University of New Hampshire, The Aerospace Corporation and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Four satellites were placed into low Earth orbit in pairs on December 6, 2013 (FIREBIRD-I) and January 31, 2015 (FIREBIRD-II) as auxiliary payloads under NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. Enabling technologies carried on the twin FIREBIRD-II CubeSats include Vanguard Space Technologies, Inc. high-efficiency body-mounted solar panels affixed to the four 10x15 cm sidewalls of each 1.5U CubeSat. These solar panels provide energy to a custom MSU-designed-and-built electrical power system that includes two 2600mAh Li-Ion cells...
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 2016
We present initial dual spacecraft observations that for the first time both constrain the spatia... more We present initial dual spacecraft observations that for the first time both constrain the spatial scale size and provide spectral properties at medium energies of electron microbursts. We explore individual microburst events that occurred on 2 February 2015 using simultaneous observations made by the twin CubeSats which comprise the National Science Foundation (NSF) Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Bursts: Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD II). During these microburst events, the two identically instrumented FIREBIRD II CubeSats were separated by as little as 11 km while traversing electron precipitation regions in low-Earth orbit. These coincident microburst events map to size scales >120 km at the equator. Given the prevalence of coincident and noncoincident events we conclude that this is of the same order of magnitude as that of the spatial scale size of electron microburst, an unknown property that is critical for quantifying their overall role in radiation belt dynamics. Finally, we present measurements of electron microbursts showing that precipitation often occurs simultaneously across a broad energy range spanning 200 keV to 1 MeV, a new form of empirical evidence that provides additional insights into the physics of microburst generation mechanisms.
We report progress in the study of CZT strip detectors featuring orthogonal coplanar anode contac... more We report progress in the study of CZT strip detectors featuring orthogonal coplanar anode contacts. The work includes laboratory and simulation studies aimed at optimizing and developing compact, efficient, high performance detector modules for 0.05 to 1 MeV gamma radiation measurements. The novel coplanar anode strip configuration retains many of the performance advantages of pixel detectors yet requires far fewer
ABSTRACT Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FI... more ABSTRACT Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD), a space weather-targeted and goal-directed mission supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, will launch into a high-inclination, low-Earth orbit in October 2013 as a secondary payload under NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program. FIREBIRD is a dual CubeSat mission that is designed to resolve the spatial scale size and energy dependence of electron microbursts from the Van Allen radiation belts. The FIREBIRD mission embodies the CubeSat ideal: high scientific return provided at low cost through focused and novel investigation of an unexplored yet important phenomenon in a region easily accessed by nanosatellites.
... Member, IEEE, Alan L. Wintenberg, Member, IEEE, Mark Widholm, Usha Jagadish, James Ledoux, Ma... more ... Member, IEEE, Alan L. Wintenberg, Member, IEEE, Mark Widholm, Usha Jagadish, James Ledoux, Mark L. McConnell, Member, IEEE, S. Shane Frank, and ... They would also like to thank R. Grazioso of RMD for help with the proton ionization simulations, C. Castaneda of the ...
... JR Macri, B. Dönmez, ML McConnell, JM Ryan, and M. Widholm are with the University of New Ham... more ... JR Macri, B. Dönmez, ML McConnell, JM Ryan, and M. Widholm are with the University of New Hampshire Space Science Center, Durham, NH 03824, USA ... in an independent measurement using a 1.5-in-thick NaI(Tl) detector that photons/s (122 and 136 keV) are inci-dent on ...
FIREBIRD (Focused Investigations of Relativistic Burst Intensity, Range and Dynamics) is an NSF f... more FIREBIRD (Focused Investigations of Relativistic Burst Intensity, Range and Dynamics) is an NSF funded CubeSat specifically designed to study electron microbursts. Microbursts are short-lived (~100ms) bursts of electron precipitation from the Earth’s radiation belts to the atmosphere. Each FIREBIRD mission (launched December 2013, and January 2015, respectively) consisted of a pair of CubeSats which slowly separated over the course of the mission to measure bursts at a variety of spatial scale sizes.
In this poster we make an initial presentation of particle data from a winter 2008 sounding rocke... more In this poster we make an initial presentation of particle data from a winter 2008 sounding rocket compaign studying ionospheric outflow in the cusp region. The rocket was launched on January 18, 2008 at 0730 UT from the Andoya Rocket Range in Norway, reaching an apogee of 1467 km over the Eiscat Svalbard Radar. The payload instrumentation shows active and
Recent technological developments have enabled a CubeSat-based targeted science investigation to ... more Recent technological developments have enabled a CubeSat-based targeted science investigation to unravel a mysterious process that results in the Earth being bombarded by relativistic electrons. The Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD) mission is an-NSF funded collaboration carried out by Montana State University, the University of New Hampshire, The Aerospace Corporation and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Four satellites were placed into low Earth orbit in pairs on December 6, 2013 (FIREBIRD-I) and January 31, 2015 (FIREBIRD-II) as auxiliary payloads under NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. Enabling technologies carried on the twin FIREBIRD-II CubeSats include Vanguard Space Technologies, Inc. high-efficiency body-mounted solar panels affixed to the four 10x15 cm sidewalls of each 1.5U CubeSat. These solar panels provide energy to a custom MSU-designed-and-built electrical power system that includes two 2600mAh Li-Ion cells...
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 2016
We present initial dual spacecraft observations that for the first time both constrain the spatia... more We present initial dual spacecraft observations that for the first time both constrain the spatial scale size and provide spectral properties at medium energies of electron microbursts. We explore individual microburst events that occurred on 2 February 2015 using simultaneous observations made by the twin CubeSats which comprise the National Science Foundation (NSF) Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Bursts: Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD II). During these microburst events, the two identically instrumented FIREBIRD II CubeSats were separated by as little as 11 km while traversing electron precipitation regions in low-Earth orbit. These coincident microburst events map to size scales >120 km at the equator. Given the prevalence of coincident and noncoincident events we conclude that this is of the same order of magnitude as that of the spatial scale size of electron microburst, an unknown property that is critical for quantifying their overall role in radiation belt dynamics. Finally, we present measurements of electron microbursts showing that precipitation often occurs simultaneously across a broad energy range spanning 200 keV to 1 MeV, a new form of empirical evidence that provides additional insights into the physics of microburst generation mechanisms.
We report progress in the study of CZT strip detectors featuring orthogonal coplanar anode contac... more We report progress in the study of CZT strip detectors featuring orthogonal coplanar anode contacts. The work includes laboratory and simulation studies aimed at optimizing and developing compact, efficient, high performance detector modules for 0.05 to 1 MeV gamma radiation measurements. The novel coplanar anode strip configuration retains many of the performance advantages of pixel detectors yet requires far fewer
ABSTRACT Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FI... more ABSTRACT Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD), a space weather-targeted and goal-directed mission supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, will launch into a high-inclination, low-Earth orbit in October 2013 as a secondary payload under NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program. FIREBIRD is a dual CubeSat mission that is designed to resolve the spatial scale size and energy dependence of electron microbursts from the Van Allen radiation belts. The FIREBIRD mission embodies the CubeSat ideal: high scientific return provided at low cost through focused and novel investigation of an unexplored yet important phenomenon in a region easily accessed by nanosatellites.
... Member, IEEE, Alan L. Wintenberg, Member, IEEE, Mark Widholm, Usha Jagadish, James Ledoux, Ma... more ... Member, IEEE, Alan L. Wintenberg, Member, IEEE, Mark Widholm, Usha Jagadish, James Ledoux, Mark L. McConnell, Member, IEEE, S. Shane Frank, and ... They would also like to thank R. Grazioso of RMD for help with the proton ionization simulations, C. Castaneda of the ...
... JR Macri, B. Dönmez, ML McConnell, JM Ryan, and M. Widholm are with the University of New Ham... more ... JR Macri, B. Dönmez, ML McConnell, JM Ryan, and M. Widholm are with the University of New Hampshire Space Science Center, Durham, NH 03824, USA ... in an independent measurement using a 1.5-in-thick NaI(Tl) detector that photons/s (122 and 136 keV) are inci-dent on ...
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