Current Status and Main Scientific Results of In-flight CSES Mission

Abstract

The CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) is the electromagnetism satellite of China's Zhangheng mission which is planned to launch a series of microsatellites within next 10 years in order to monitor the electromagnetic environment, gravitational field. The CSES 01 probe (also called ZH-1) was launched successfully on 2 February 2018, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre (China) and is expected to operate for 5 years in orbit. The second probe CSES 02 is going to be launched in 2022. The scientific objectives of CSES are to detect the electromagnetic field and waves, plasma and particles, for studying the seismic-associated disturbances. To meet the requirements of scientific objective, the satellite is designed to be in a sun-synchronous orbit with a high inclination of 97.4° at an altitude around 507 km. CSES carries nine scientific payloads including Search-coil magnetometer, Electric Field Detector, High precision Magnetometer, GNSS occultation Receiver, Plasma Analyzer, Langmuir Probe, two Energetic Particle Detectors (including an Italian one), and Tri-Band Transmitter. Up to now, CSES has been operating in orbit for 2 years with stable and reliable performance. By using all kinds of data acquired by CSES, we have undertaken a series of scientific researches in the field of global geomagnetic field re-building, the ionospheric variation environment, waves, and particle precipitations under disturbed space weather and earthquake activities, the Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere coupling mechanism research and so on.