Energetic Electrons Precipitating at High Latitudes: PEEL Data from HotPay-2 Mission

Abstract

The instrument PEEL recorded low flux of precipitating energetic electrons during the flight of the HotPay-2 sounding rocket launched from Andoya Rocket Range (Lat. 69°.18'N, Long. 16°.01'E) on 31-JAN-2008 at 19:14:00 UT. After the brief description of the instrument, its possibilities and limitations to measure energetic electron flux in the upper atmosphere, the profile of counting rate obtained by the three detectors in four energy channels is presented. The epoch of solar activity minima and relatively low geomagnetic activity preceding the HotPay-2 mission, the detectors with given geometrical factor provided relatively low counting rate. Energetic particle precipitation contributes significantly to the energy deposition in the ionosphere and thus its measurements on rockets are important for the updating of models used in space weather forecasts. Such measurement device, can serve for space weather monitoring of energetic electrons present in the upper atmosphere. This type of in situ measurements can contribute to the completeness of the picture of electron flux (its high energy part) distribution and of its variability in the vicinity of Earth.