Small Space Weather Research Mission Designed Fully by Students

Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder are building a satellite to study the space weather generated by high-energy particles near the Earth. The Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE) is a CubeSat mission funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, scheduled for launch into a low-Earth polar orbit in June 2012 as a secondary payload under NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. CSSWE will observe energetic particles for a minimum of 3months with two goals: to relate the location, magnitude, and frequency of solar flares to the timing, duration, and energy spectrum of solar energetic particles (SEP) reaching Earth and to determine the evolution of the energy spectrum of radiation belt electrons. To accomplish these objectives, CSSWE will measure energetic ions and electrons coming directly from the Sun while it traverses the polar regions, where Earths magnetic field lines are directly connected to the interplanetary magnetic field. CSSWE will also measure radiation belt particles at lower latitudes. These types of radiation can affect the operations and life spans of Earth-orbiting spacecraft. Solar particles incident over the polar caps also produce ionospheric disturbances that can affect radio frequency communications. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.