CubeSat for Solar Particles

CubeSat for Solar Particles (CuSP) is a planned nanosatellite spacecraft that will study the dynamic particles and magnetic fields that stream from the Sun.^[2][3]

CuSP is a low-cost 6U CubeSat nanosatellite that once deployed, will orbit the Sun, measuring incoming radiation that can create a wide variety of effects at Earth, from interfering with radio communications to tripping up satellite electronics to creating electric currents in power grids. The principal investigator for CuSP is Mihir Desai, at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.^[2] It will fly as a secondary payload mission on the first flight of the Space Launch System, Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) scheduled to launch in 2019.^[1]

Objective

To create a network of space weather stations would require many instruments scattered throughout space millions of miles apart, but the cost of such a system is prohibitive.^[2] Though the CubeSats can only carry a few instruments, they are relatively inexpensive to launch because of their small mass and standardized design. So, CuSP also serves as a test for creating a network of space science stations.^[2]

Payload

This CubeSat will carry three scientific instruments:^[2][3]

1. The Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS), is built by the Southwest Research Institute to detect and characterize low-energy solar energetic particles.
2. Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope (MERiT), will return counts of high-energy solar energetic particles.
3. Vector Helium Magnetometer (VHM), being built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields.

Propulsion

The satellite features a cold gas thruster system for propulsion, attitude control (orientation) and orbital maneuvering.^[4]

See also

The 13 CubeSats flying in the Exploration Mission 1

• Lunar Flashlight will map exposed water ice on the Moon
• Near-Earth Asteroid Scout by NASA is a solar sail spacecraft that will encounter a near-Earth asteroid
• BioSentinel is an astrobiology mission
• SkyFire by Lockheed Martin
• Lunar IceCube, by the Morehead State University
• CubeSat for Solar Particles (CuSP)
• Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map), designed by the Arizona State University
• EQUULEUS, submitted by JAXA and the University of Tokyo
• OMOTENASHI, submitted by JAXA, is a lunar lander
• ArgoMoon, designed by Argotec and coordinated by Italian Space Agency
• Cislunar Explorers, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Earth Escape Explorer (CU-E³), University of Colorado Boulder
• Team Miles, by Fluid & Reason, LLC. Florida

References