Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment

CSSWE Data Now Available!

Quintin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:14:35 +0000

Data for October, November, and December 2012 is now available from the data download page!

These data are still preliminary, so please contact the CSSWE team for additional information before publication.

CSSWE Has a Wikipedia Page

Quintin — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:01:45 +0000

After a long, arduous process, CSSWE finally has a wikipedia page and is an official part of the internet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Student_Space_Weather_Experiment

Preliminary Data Now Viewable!

Quintin — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:30:41 +0000

The first 20 days of science data, Oct 5 to Oct 25 2012, has gone through the preliminary stages of processing and is viewable on the Data page! Keep checking back as we’ll have more glimpses of the data and, eventually, Level 0 data available for download.

CSSWE featured in LASP podcast

labl0691 — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:25:11 +0000

The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) podcast series is a set of interviews to highlight different missions or projects at LASP. CSSWE was the focus of a recent podcast. Check it out here!

CSSWE rings in the new year!

labl0691 — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:51:56 +0000

Happy new year! CSSWE continues to operate well, providing on-orbit science data. Here are a few milestones that the satellite has recently passed:
*110 days of on-orbit operations.
*90 UTC days with the REPTile instrument on.
*1 million six-second science data samples downlinked.
*Professor Xinlin Li (CSSWE PI) presented preliminary CSSWE science data at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting in December.

2012 was quite a year for CSSWE: it went from final testing at CU to an on-orbit operational satellite. Here’s to an even better 2013!

First Results Debuted at AGU!

Quintin — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:44:00 +0000

Professor Xinlin Li debuted the first science results of CSSWE at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco last week. The results were very well received, and the science community is anxious to get their hands on the data which, in the words of Professor Li, “far exceeds expectations”.

On another note: 90 days on orbit and still counting! And we have 68 days of science data available. Most of the data coincides with periods when the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), now renamed to the Van Allen Probes, were also taking science measurements. Students working on CSSWE are judiciously processing REPTile data, looking for conjunctions with the Van Allen Probes that could provide clues on the dynamics of the radiation belts.

3 weeks of science data

labl0691 — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:28:33 +0000

The CSSWE science instrument REPTile has been taking data for ~three weeks now! We’re getting a great picture of the dynamics of Earth’s radiation environment.

Science Mode – First Results!

labl0691 — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:00:19 +0000

The REPTile instrument has been turned on, and we are now taking measurements of energetic protons and electrons in Earth’s magnetosphere! Below are our very first measurements as we turned on high voltage to each detector sequentially – the peaks in the data indicate the spacecraft is passing through the outer radiation belt, roughly 4x per orbit. More to come!

These are very preliminary, raw counts on our detectors – the data has not yet been processed and is not for use or publication yet. Please contact the CSSWE team with any questions.

On Orbit: Week Three – Entering Science Mode!

labl0691 — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:14:48 +0000

For the first three weeks of spacecraft commissioning, we’ve been monitoring system health and watching our spacecraft align with Earth’s magnetic field. All housekeeping data looks nominal, so we’re ready to move into Science Mode!

Early this morning, we commanded the spacecraft into Science Mode to begin the commissioning phase for the science instrument. In science mode, CSSWE stops beaconing to prevent contamination of the instrument measurements. Thanks to everyone around the world who helped track us over the past 3 weeks!

Check back for updates on science commissioning and – hopefully soon – our first science data!

All beacons decoded since launch

On Orbit: Week Two

labl0691 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:23:52 +0000

Here’s an updated image of all the beacons received to date. Thanks again for everyone’s help!!

The satellite continues to look healthy, and we’ve started downlinking housekeeping and magnetometer data – you can watch the command counter in our beacons increment as we keep requesting data!