ABSTRACT
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes Ion Composition Experiment (RBSPICE) on both the Van Allen Probes spacecraft is a time-of-flight versus total energy instrument that provided ion composition data over the ring current energy (â¼7 keV to â¼1 MeV), and electrons over the energy range â¼25 keV to â¼1 MeV throughout the duration of the mission (2012 - 2019). In this paper we present instrument calibrations, implemented after the Van Allen Probes mission was launched. In particular, we discuss updated rate dependent corrections, possible contamination by "accidentals" rates, and caveats concerning the use of certain products. We also provide a summary of the major advances in ring current science, obtained from RBSPICE observations, and their implications for the future of inner magnetosphere exploration.
ABSTRACT
The Van Allen Probes mission operations materialized through a distributed model in which operational responsibility was divided between the Mission Operations Center (MOC) and separate instrument specific SOCs. The sole MOC handled all aspects of telemetering and receiving tasks as well as certain scientifically relevant ancillary tasks. Each instrument science team developed individual instrument specific SOCs proficient in unique capabilities in support of science data acquisition, data processing, instrument performance, and tools for the instrument team scientists. In parallel activities, project scientists took on the task of providing a significant modeling tool base usable by the instrument science teams and the larger scientific community. With a mission as complex as Van Allen Probes, scientific inquiry occurred due to constant and significant collaboration between the SOCs and in concert with the project science team. Planned cross-instrument coordinated observations resulted in critical discoveries during the seven-year mission. Instrument cross-calibration activities elucidated a more seamless set of data products. Specific topics include post-launch changes and enhancements to the SOCs, discussion of coordination activities between the SOCs, SOC specific analysis software, modeling software provided by the Van Allen Probes project, and a section on lessons learned. One of the most significant lessons learned was the importance of the original decision to implement individual team SOCs providing timely and well-documented instrument data for the NASA Van Allen Probes Mission scientists and the larger magnetospheric and radiation belt scientific community.
ABSTRACT
Plasma convection in the Earth's magnetosphere from the distant magnetotail to the inner magnetosphere occurs largely in the form of mesoscale flows, i.e., discrete enhancements in the plasma flow with sharp dipolarizations of magnetic field. Recent spacecraft observations suggest that the dipolarization flows are associated with a wide range of kinetic processes such as kinetic Alfvén waves, whistler-mode waves, and nonlinear time-domain structures. In this paper we explore how mesoscale dipolarization flows produce suprathermal electron instabilities, thus providing free energy for the generation of the observed kinetic waves and structures. We employ three-dimensional test-particle simulations of electron dynamics one-way coupled to a global magnetospheric model. The simulations show rapid growth of interchanging regions of parallel and perpendicular electron temperature anisotropies distributed along the magnetic terrain formed around the dipolarization flows. Unencumbered in test-particle simulations, a rapid growth of velocity-space anisotropies in the collisionless magnetotail plasma is expected to be curbed by the generation of plasma waves. The results are compared with in situ observations of an isolated dipolarization flow at one of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission spacecraft. The observations show strong wave activity alternating between broad-band wave activity and whistler waves. With estimated spatial extent being similar to the characteristic size of the temperature anisotropy patches in our test-particle simulations, the observed bursts of the wave activity are likely to be produced by the parallel and perpendicular electron energy anisotropies driven by the dipolarization flow, as suggested by our modeling results.
