TY - JOUR
T1 - MagneToRE: Mapping the 3-D Magnetic Structure of the Solar Wind Using a Large Constellation of Nanosatellites
AU - Maruca, Bennett A.
AU - Agudelo Rueda, Jeffersson A.
AU - Bandyopadhyay, Riddhi
AU - Bianco, Federica B.
AU - Chasapis, Alexandros
AU - Chhiber, Rohit
AU - Deweese, Haley
AU - Matthaeus, William H.
AU - Miles, David M.
AU - Qudsi, Ramiz A.
AU - Richardson, Michael J.
AU - Servidio, Sergio
AU - Shay, Michael A.
AU - Sundkvist, David
AU - Verscharen, Daniel
AU - Vines, Sarah K.
AU - Westlake, Joseph H.
AU - Wicks, Robert T.
N1 - Funding information: BAM and RAQ are partially supported by NSF Award Number 1931435. JAAR is supported by the European Space Agency’s Networking/Partnership Initiative (NPI) programme and the Colombian programme Pasaporte a la Ciencia, Foco Sociedad - Reto 3 (Educación de calidad desde la ciencie, la tecnología y la innovación (CTel)), ICETEX. RB is partially supported by NASA award 80NSSC21K0739. RC and WHM are supported by NASA HSR grant 80NSSC18K1648. DMM is supported by NASA under grants and contracts 80NSSC19K0491, 80GSFC18C0008, 80NSSC18K1293, and 80NSSC20K1842. SS is supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 776262 (AIDA, www.aida-space.eu). DS is supported by NASA award 80NSSC17K0032. SKV is supported by NASA contract NNG04EB99C and by NSF grants ATM-0739864 and ATM-1420184. DV is supported by STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship ST/P003826/1 and STFC Consolidated Grant ST/S000240/1. RTW is supported by STFC Consolidated Grant ST/V006320/1.
PY - 2021/7/29
Y1 - 2021/7/29
N2 - Unlike the vast majority of astrophysical plasmas, the solar wind is accessible to spacecraft, which for decades have carried in-situ instruments for directly measuring its particles and fields. Though such measurements provide precise and detailed information, a single spacecraft on its own cannot disentangle spatial and temporal fluctuations. Even a modest constellation of in-situ spacecraft, though capable of characterizing fluctuations at one or more scales, cannot fully determine the plasma’s 3-D structure. We describe here a concept for a new mission, the Magnetic Topology Reconstruction Explorer (MagneToRE), that would comprise a large constellation of in-situ spacecraft and would, for the first time, enable 3-D maps to be reconstructed of the solar wind’s dynamic magnetic structure. Each of these nanosatellites would be based on the CubeSat form-factor and carry a compact fluxgate magnetometer. A larger spacecraft would deploy these smaller ones and also serve as their telemetry link to the ground and as a host for ancillary scientific instruments. Such an ambitious mission would be feasible under typical funding constraints thanks to advances in the miniaturization of spacecraft and instruments and breakthroughs in data science and machine learning.
AB - Unlike the vast majority of astrophysical plasmas, the solar wind is accessible to spacecraft, which for decades have carried in-situ instruments for directly measuring its particles and fields. Though such measurements provide precise and detailed information, a single spacecraft on its own cannot disentangle spatial and temporal fluctuations. Even a modest constellation of in-situ spacecraft, though capable of characterizing fluctuations at one or more scales, cannot fully determine the plasma’s 3-D structure. We describe here a concept for a new mission, the Magnetic Topology Reconstruction Explorer (MagneToRE), that would comprise a large constellation of in-situ spacecraft and would, for the first time, enable 3-D maps to be reconstructed of the solar wind’s dynamic magnetic structure. Each of these nanosatellites would be based on the CubeSat form-factor and carry a compact fluxgate magnetometer. A larger spacecraft would deploy these smaller ones and also serve as their telemetry link to the ground and as a host for ancillary scientific instruments. Such an ambitious mission would be feasible under typical funding constraints thanks to advances in the miniaturization of spacecraft and instruments and breakthroughs in data science and machine learning.
KW - CubeSat
KW - interplanetary magnetic field
KW - magnetometer
KW - nanosatellite
KW - solar wind
KW - space plasma
KW - turbulence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85117615104&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fspas.2021.665885
DO - 10.3389/fspas.2021.665885
M3 - Article
SN - 2296-987X
VL - 8
JO - Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
JF - Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
M1 - 665885
ER -