The INSPIRESat-1: Mission, science, and engineering

Chandran, Amal; Fang, Tzu‐Wei; Chang, Loren C.; Priyadarshan, H; Woods, Thomas N.; Chao, Chun-Chieh; Kohnert, Rick; Verma, Ankit; Boyajian, Spencer; Duann, Yi; Evonosky, William; Kompella, Mallikarjun; Tsai-Lin, Rong; Kumar, Anant; Srivastava, Sarthak; Schwab, Bennet; Sewell, Robert; Sarpotdar, Mayuresh

doi:10.1016/j.asr.2021.06.025

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The INSPIRESat-1 normal science observations are to view the Sun with DAXSS during orbit sunlit periods and to orient into the spacecraft ram direction for the Compact Ionospheric Probe ionospheric plasma measurements during orbit eclipse periods (Chandran et al 2021), though due to the orbit geometry, eclipses are rare. The MinXSS-3 supporting electronics stay powered on during orbit eclipse, but the 5W X123 unit is turned off to conserve power during eclipse.…”

Section: Daxss Solar Observations and Data Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With this unexpected anomaly, the MinXSS-3 instrument was quickly developed and delivered in 2019 as a flight-ofopportunity payload for the INSPIRESat-1 mission (Chandran et al 2021); however, the launch of INSPIRESat-1 on the Indian Space Research Organization's Polar Space Launch Vehicle C was delayed by two years due to the worldwide COVID19 pandemic. The MinXSS-3 payload includes flight spare boards from MinXSS-2 and a technology demonstration version of the X123 Fast SDD using a novel aperture design, named the Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS; Schwab et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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First Results for Solar Soft X-Ray Irradiance Measurements from the Third-generation Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer

Woods,

Schwab,

Sewell

et al. 2023

ApJ

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Three generations of the Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) have flown on small satellites with the goal “to explore the energy distribution of soft X-ray (SXR) emissions from the quiescent Sun, active regions, and during solar flares, and to model the impact on Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere.” The primary science instrument is the Amptek X123 X-ray spectrometer that has improved with each generation of the MinXSS experiment. This third-generation MinXSS-3 has a higher energy resolution and larger effective area than its predecessors and is also known as the Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS). It was launched on the INSPIRESat-1 satellite on 2022 February 14, and INSPIRESat-1 has successfully completed its 6 month prime mission. The INSPIRESat-1 is in a dawn–dusk, Sun-synchronous orbit and therefore has had 24 hr coverage of the Sun during most of its mission so far. The rise of Solar Cycle 25 has been observed by DAXSS. This paper introduces the INSPIRESat-1 DAXSS solar SXR observations, and we focus the science results here on a solar occultation experiment and multiple flares on 2022 April 24. One key flare result is that the reduction of elemental abundances appears greatest during the flare impulsive phase, thus highlighting the important role of chromospheric evaporation during flares to inject warmer plasma into the coronal loops. Furthermore, these results are suggestive that the amount of chromospheric evaporation is related to flare temperature and intensity.

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Section: Daxss Solar Observations and Data Productsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First Results for Solar Soft X-Ray Irradiance Measurements from the Third-generation Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer

Woods,

Schwab,

Sewell

et al. 2023

ApJ

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“…The INSPIRESat-1 CubeSat was recently launched on 2022 February 14 and had onboard an improved version of the X-123 X-ray spectrometer that flew on MinXSS-1 (Chandran et al 2021). The instrument onboard is the DAXSS that has improvements both in the design of the spectrometer itself as well as in the design of its dual aperture (Schwab et al 2020).…”

Section: Validation With Daxss Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the Daily Variations of the Coronal X-ray Spectral Irradiance with Two Temperatures and Two Emission Measures

Schwab

Woods

Mason

2023

ApJ

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The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS-1) CubeSat observed solar X-rays between 0.5 and 10 keV. A two-temperature, two-emission-measure model is fit to each daily averaged spectrum. These daily average temperatures and emission measures are plotted against the corresponding daily solar 10.7 cm radio flux (F10.7) value and a linear correlation is found between each that we call the Schwab Woods Mason (SWM) model. The linear trends show that one can estimate the solar spectrum between 0.5 and 10 keV based on the F10.7 measurement alone. The cooler temperature component of this model represents the quiescent Sun contribution to the spectra and is essentially independent of solar activity, meaning the daily average quiescent Sun is accurately described by a single temperature (1.70 MK) regardless of solar intensity and only the emission measure corresponding to this temperature needs to be adjusted for higher or lower solar intensity. The warmer temperature component is shown to represent active region contributions to the spectra and varies between 5 and 6 MK. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) XRS-B data between 1 and 8 Å is used to validate this model and it is found that the ratio between the SWM model irradiance and the GOES XRS-B irradiance is close to unity on average. MinXSS-1 spectra during quiescent solar conditions have very low counts beyond around 3 keV. The SWM model can generate MinXSS-1 or Dual Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer spectra at very high spectral resolution and with extended energy ranges to fill in gaps between measurements and extend predictions back to 1947.

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“…To date, LASP has built and launched nearly a dozen small satellites, in a wide range of form factors, including 3U (CSSWE, 2 MinXSS-1, 3 MinXSS-2 4 ), 6U (CSIM, 5 CUTE, 6 CTIM 7 ), as well as some custom form factors (INSPIRESat-1 8 ). Early on, LASP utilized the XB1 spacecraft bus from Blue Canyon Technologies and either purchased or built solar panels.…”

Section: A Brief History Of Smallsat Development At Laspmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication and testing of high fill-factor solar panels for SPRITE CubeSat

Diaz,

Vorobiev,

Indahl

et al. 2023

UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XXIII

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SPRITE is a NASA far-UV telescope and spectrograph being designed and assembled at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). SPRITE’s mission is UV astrophysics in the 1000 - 1750 Angstroms spectral regime. SPRITE will observe low-redshift galaxies, as well as supernova remnants in the Milky Way. SPRITE’s complex science payload is extremely constrained by the volume allocation of the 12U CubeSat form factor. Our solution to deal with SPRITE's volume constraints, is to fabricate solar panels with a high fill factor. With only three deployable single-hinge panels and one body-mounted panel, SPRITE is able to generate 8.5 to 9.7 Watts of power when fully illuminated, using 45 Azur Space AG30A solar cell assemblies. SPRITE is currently finishing the integration and testing phase of its program, with a launch manifested for August 2024.

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The INSPIRESat-1: Mission, science, and engineering

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

First Results for Solar Soft X-Ray Irradiance Measurements from the Third-generation Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer

First Results for Solar Soft X-Ray Irradiance Measurements from the Third-generation Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer

Modeling the Daily Variations of the Coronal X-ray Spectral Irradiance with Two Temperatures and Two Emission Measures

Fabrication and testing of high fill-factor solar panels for SPRITE CubeSat

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