[P-EM11] Dynamics of the Inner Magnetospheric System

[PEM11-03] GTOSat: A Next-Generation CubeSat to study Earth’s Radiation Belts

*Lauren W Blum¹, Larry Kepko², Christine Gabrielse⁵, Drew L Turner⁴, Allison Jaynes³, Mykhaylo Shumko², Jared Espley², David Sheppard², Jacob Gruesbeck², Shrikanth G Kanekal² (1.University of Colorado Boulder, 2.NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 3.University of Iowa, 4.JHU/APL, 5.The Aerospace Corporation)

Keywords:CubeSats, radiation belts, inner magnetosphere

GTOSat, a 6U CubeSat mission scheduled to launch in June 2022, aims to pave the way for highly reliable, capable smallsat constellations and missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). GTOSat will study Earth’s dynamic radiation belts, acting as a follow-on to NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission and demonstrating the utility of smallsats for both science and space weather monitoring. While a number of previous CubeSats have studied the radiation belts from LEO, GTOSat will launch into a low inclination geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to directly sample the core trapped particle population. From this orbit, it will measure energy spectra and pitch angle distributions of ~hundreds keV - MeV electrons and ions, with the primary science goal of advancing our quantitative understanding of particle acceleration and loss in the outer radiation belt. High-heritage instrumentation includes the Relativistic Electron Magnetic Spectrometer (REMS), which is a customized version of the MagEIS instrument onboard NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission, and a boom-mounted fluxgate magnetometer to provide 3-axis knowledge of the local ambient magnetic field.