Field-aligned currents couple energy between the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere and are responsible for driving both micro and macro motions of plasma and neutral atoms in both regimes. These currents are believed to be a contributing energy source for ion acceleration in the polar ionosphere and may be detected via measurements of magnetic gradients along the track of a polar orbiting spacecraft, usually the north-south gradients of the east-west field component. The detection of such gradients does not require observatory class measurements of the geomagnetic field. The Magnetic Field instrument (MGF) measures the local magnetic field onboard the Enhanced Polar Outflow Probe (e-POP) satellite by using two ring-core fluxgate sensors to characterize and remove the stray spacecraft field. The fluxgate sensors have their heritage in the MAGSAT design, are double wound for reduced mass and cross-field dependence, and are mounted on a modest 0.9 m carbon-fiber boom. The MGF samples the magnetic field 160 times per sec (∼ 50 meters) to a resolution
Difficulty in making low noise magnetic measurements is a significant challenge to the use of cube‐satellite (CubeSat) platforms for scientific constellation class missions to study the magnetosphere. Sufficient resolution is required to resolve three‐dimensional spatiotemporal structures of the magnetic field variations accompanying both waves and current systems of the nonuniform plasmas controlling dynamic magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling. This paper describes the design, validation, and test of a flight‐ready, miniature, low‐mass, low‐power, and low‐magnetic noise boom‐mounted fluxgate magnetometer for CubeSat applications. The miniature instrument achieves a magnetic noise floor of 150–200 pT/√Hz at 1 Hz, consumes 400 mW of power, has a mass of 121 g (sensor and boom), stows on the hull, and deploys on a 60 cm boom from a three‐unit CubeSat reducing the noise from the onboard reaction wheel to less than 1.5 nT at the sensor. The instrument's capabilities will be demonstrated and validated in space in late 2016 following the launch of the University of Alberta Ex‐Alta 1 CubeSat, part of the QB50 constellation mission. We illustrate the potential scientific returns and utility of using a CubeSats carrying such fluxgate magnetometers to constitute a magnetospheric constellation using example data from the low‐Earth orbit European Space Agency Swarm mission. Swarm data reveal significant changes in the spatiotemporal characteristics of the magnetic fields in the coupled magnetosphere‐ionosphere system, even when the spacecraft are separated by only approximately 10 s along track and approximately 1.4° in longitude.
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