Browsing by Author "Springer, Larry"

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The FIREBIRD-II CubeSat mission: Focused investigations of relativistic electron burst intensity, range, and dynamics
(2020-03) Johnson, A. T.; Shumko, Mykhaylo; Griffith, B.; Klumpar, David; Sample, John; Springer, Larry; Leh, N.; Spence, H. E.; Smith, S.; Crew, A.; Handley, M.; Mashburn, K. M.; Larsen, B. A.; Blake, J. B.
FIREBIRD-II is a National Science Foundation funded CubeSat mission designed to study the scale size and energy spectrum of relativistic electron microbursts. The mission consists of two identical 1.5 U CubeSats in a low earth polar orbit, each with two solid state detectors that differ only in the size of their geometric factors and fields of view. Having two spacecraft in close orbit allows the scale size of microbursts to be investigated through the intra-spacecraft separation when microbursts are observed simultaneously on each unit. Each detector returns high cadence (10 s of ms) measurements of the electron population from 200 keV to >1 MeV across six energy channels. The energy channels were selected to fill a gap in the observations of the Heavy Ion Large Telescope instrument on the Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer. FIREBIRD-II has been in orbit for 5 years and continues to return high quality data. After the first month in orbit, the spacecraft had separated beyond the expected scale size of microbursts, so the focus has shifted toward conjunctions with other magnetospheric missions. FIREBIRD-II has addressed all of its primary science objectives, and its long lifetime and focus on conjunctions has enabled additional science beyond the scope of the original mission. This paper presents a brief history of the FIREBIRD mission’s science goals, followed by a description of the instrument and spacecraft. The data products are then discussed along with some caveats necessary for proper use of the data.
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS)
(2014-02) De Pontieu, Bart; Title, Alan M.; Lemen, James; Kushner, G.D.; Akin, D.J.; Allard, A.; Berger, T.; Boerner, P.; Cheung, M.; Chou, C.; Drake, J.F.; Duncan, D.W.; Freeland, S.; Heyman, G.F.; Hoffman, C.; Hurlburt, Neal E.; Lindgren, R.W.; Mathur, D.; Rehse, R.; Sabolish, D.; Seguin, R.; Schrijver, C.J.; Tarbell, Ted D.; Wülser, J.P.; Wolfson, C.J.; Yanari, C.; Mudge, J.; Nguyen-Phuc, N.; Timmons, R.; van Bezooijen, R.; Weingrod, I.; Brookner, R.; Butcher, G.; Dougherty, B.; Eder, J.; Knagenhjelm, V.; Larsen, S.; Mansir, D.; Phan, L.; Boyle, P.; Cheimets, P.N.; DeLuca, E.E.; Golub, Leon; Gates, R.; Hertz, E.; McKillop, Sean; Park, Saehan; Perry, T.; Podgorski, W.A.; Reeves, Kathy K.; Saar, Steven; Testa, Paola; Tian, Hui; Weber, Mark A.; Dunn, C.; Eccles, S.; Jaeggli, Sarah; Kankelborg, Charles; Mashburn, K.; Pust, Nathan J.; Springer, Larry
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) small explorer spacecraft provides simultaneous spectra and images of the photosphere, chromosphere, transition region, and corona with 0.33 0.4 arcsec spatial resolution, twosecond temporal resolution, and 1 km s1 velocity resolution over a fieldofview of up to 175 arcsec × 175 arcsec. IRIS was launched into a Sunsynchronous orbit on 27 June 2013 using a PegasusXL rocket and consists of a 19cm UV telescope that feeds a slitbased dualbandpass imaging spectrograph. IRIS obtains spectra in passbands from 1332 1358 Å, 1389 1407 Å, and 2783 2834 Å, including bright spectral lines formed in the chromosphere (Mg ii h 2803 Å and Mg ii k 2796 Å) and transition region (C ii 1334/1335 Å and Si iv 1394/1403 Å). Slitjaw images in four different passbands (C ii 1330, Si iv 1400, Mg ii k 2796, and Mg ii wing 2830 Å) can be taken simultaneously with spectral rasters that sample regions up to 130 arcsec × 175 arcsec at a variety of spatial samplings (from 0.33 arcsec and up). IRIS is sensitive to emission from plasma at temperatures between 5000 K and 10 MK and will advance our understanding of the flow of mass and energy through an interface region, formed by the chromosphere and transition region, between the photosphere and corona. This highly structured and dynamic region not only acts as the conduit of all mass and energy feeding into the corona and solar wind, it also requires an order of magnitude more energy to heat than the corona and solar wind combined. The IRIS investigation includes a strong numerical modeling component based on advanced radiativeMHD codes to facilitate interpretation of observations of this complex region. Approximately eight Gbytes of data (after compression) are acquired by IRIS each day and made available for unrestricted use within a few days of the observation.
National Student Solar Spectrograph Competition overview
(2012-10) Larimer, Randal M.; Des Jardins, Angela; Shaw, Joseph A.; Kankelborg, Charles; Palmer, Christopher; Springer, Larry; Key, Joey S.
The yearly National Student Solar Spectrograph Competition (NSSSC) is Montana Space Grant Consortium's Education and Public Outreach (EP/O) Program for NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission. The NSSSC is designed to give schools with less aerospace activity such as Minority Serving Institutions and Community Colleges an opportunity for hands on real world research experience. The NSSSC provides students from across the country the opportunity to work as part of an undergraduate interdisciplinary team to design, build and test a ground based solar spectrograph. Over the course of nine months, teams come up with their own science goals and then build an instrument to collect data in support of their goals. Teams then travel to Bozeman, MT to demonstrate their instruments and present their results in a competitive science fair environment. This paper and poster will discuss the 2011-2012 competition along with results as well as provide information on the 2012 -2013 competition opportunities.