(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-01)
Gross, Jason N.; Kessee, Amy M.; Christian, John A.; Gu, Yu; Scime, Earl; Komjathy, Attila; Lightsey, E. Glenn; Pollock, Craig J.
The CubeSat for GNSS Sounding of Ionosphere-Plasmasphere Electron Density (CuSPED)
is a 3U CubeSat mission concept that has been developed in response to the NASA Heliophysics program's decadal science goal of the determining of the dynamics and coupling
of the Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere, and atmosphere and their response to solar and
terrestrial inputs. The mission was formulated through a collaboration between West Virginia University, Georgia Tech, NASA GSFC and NASA JPL, and features a 3U CubeSat
that hosts both a miniaturized space capable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
receiver for topside atmospheric sounding, along with a Thermal Electron Capped Hemi-
spherical Spectrometer (TECHS) for the purpose of in situ electron precipitation measurements. These two complimentary measurement techniques will provide data for the
purpose of constraining ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling models and will also enable
studies of the local plasma environment and spacecraft charging; a phenomenon which
is known to lead to significant errors in the measurement of low-energy, charged species
from instruments aboard spacecraft traversing the ionosphere. The CUSPED mission has
been proposed, and this paper provides an overview of the concept including its science
motivation and implementation.