The CIRBE (Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment) satellite is a 3U (10cm x 10cm x 30cm) CubeSat with the mission of allowing scientists to gain a better understanding of the formation of the inner radiation belt electrons as well as determine where these particles come from and how they behave. The proposed goal of the CIRBE mission is to provide state-of-the-art measurements of .25-5 MeV electrons (and 6.5-100 MeV protons) in the Earth’s radiation belt in a highly inclined Low Earth Orbit.
The CIRBE datasets (for electrons) are now available on CDAWeb. They are listed under the “Smallsats/Cubesats” source and/or “Particles (space)” instrument type. They are also available via HTTP/FTP at this link: https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/aaa_smallsats_cubesats/cirbe/reptile-2/
NASA had a news release on February 6th and social posts about CIRBE’s new findings, the paper was published in JGR on the same day (coordinated
The CIRBE (Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment) satellite is a 3U (10cm x 10cm x 30cm) CubeSat with the mission of allowing scientists to gain a better understanding of the formation of the inner radiation belt electrons as well as determine where these particles come from and how they behave. The proposed goal of the CIRBE mission is to provide state-of-the-art measurements of .3-3.5 MeV electrons (and 6-35 MeV protons) in the Earth’s radiation belt in a highly inclined Low Earth Orbit.
In order to take measurements of incident electrons and protons, the instrument boresite must be pointed perpendicular to the local magnetic field. The solar panels must always face the sun such that they are perpendicular to the sun vector. These requirements result in a specific alignment of the spacecraft at each point in orbit. This is shown in the figure below.
