Science Objectives and Rationale for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission

Abstract

The NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission addresses how populations of high energy charged particles are created, vary, and evolve in space environments, and specifically within Earth's magnetically trapped radiation belts. RBSP, with a nominal launch date of August 2012, comprises two spacecraft making in situ measurements for at least 2 years in nearly the same highly elliptical, low inclination orbits (1.1 × 5.8 RE, 10 • ). The orbits are slightly different so that 1 spacecraft laps the other spacecraft about every 2.5 months, allowing separation of spatial from temporal effects over spatial scales ranging from ∼0.1 to 5 RE. The uniquely comprehensive suite of instruments, identical on the two spacecraft, measures all of the particle (electrons, ions, ion composition), fields (E and B), and wave distributions (dE and dB) that are needed to resolve the most critical science questions. Here we summarize the high level science objectives for the RBSP mission, provide historical background on studies of Earth and planetary radiation belts, present examples of the most compelling scientific mysteries of the radiation belts, present the mission design of the RBSP mission that targets these mysteries and objectives, present the observation and measurement requirements for the mission, and introduce the instrumentation that will deliver these measurements. This paper references and is followed by a number of companion papers that describe the details of the RBSP mission, spacecraft, and instruments.

An impenetrable barrier to ultrarelativistic electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts

“…Additional, concurrently measured data 11 reveal that this barrier to inward electron radial transport does not arise because of a physical boundary within the Earth's intrinsic magnetic field, and that inward radial diffusion is unlikely to be inhibited by scattering by electromagnetic transmitter wave fields. Rather, we suggest that exceptionally slow natural inward radial diffusion combined with weak, but persistent, waveparticle pitch angle scattering deep inside the Earth's plasmasphere can combine to create an almost impenetrable barrier through which the most energetic Van Allen belt electrons cannot migrate.…”

“…The broken black trace plotted over the REPT data in c shows the measured location of the plasmapause. This plasmapause location is derived from spacecraft potential measurements 11 , which can be used as a proxy for local plasma density. We note that in a-e the highly energetic electrons measured by REPT sensors throughout the mission never seem to extend inwards of L < 2.8.…”

Global-scale coherence modulation of radiation-belt electron loss from plasmaspheric hiss

“…We analyse in detail the magnetic conjunctions between the Van Allen probes (a NASA Earth-orbiting satellite mission) 6 and the Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses (BARREL) balloons 7 flying at altitudes of nearly 35 km over Antarctica on 3 and 6 January 2014. We then used this new set of measurements to explore spatial and temporal scales previously not easily accessible.…”

In-flight performance of the Van Allen Probes RF telecommunications system

“…1. Thus far in the mission, the on-board telecommunications systems continue to meet system requirements [1][2][3].…”