Imaging energetic electron spectrometer onboard a Chinese navigation satellite in the inclined GEO orbit

Abstract

The energetic electron measurement is one of the most important issues to understand dynamics in space physics and the applications for space weather. In this study, the principle and functional components of the imaging energetic electron spectrometer (IES) onboard a Chinese navigation satellite in the inclined GEO orbit (IGSO) was introduced. The IES instrument is developed by the team in Peking University (BeiDa), thus it is named as BD-IES. Based on the pin-hole technique, the instrument can measure 50– 600 keV electrons incident from 9 directions over a range of 180 ° in polar angle. With pulse height analysis (PHA), the spectrum can be determined for each direction. The energy and angular calibrations were performed, which show the good energy and angular characteristics of BD-IES. Monte Carlo simulations show that the anti-proton design of BD-IES can effectively decrease the proton contamination on the electron measurements in the inclined GEO orbit. The primary results of BD-IES verify the successful design of this instrument.