Abstract
NASA’s Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission will make the first in situ measurements of the solar corona and the birthplace of the solar wind. The FIELDS instrument suite on SPP will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, the properties of in situ plasma waves, electron density and temperature profiles, and interplanetary radio emissions, amongst other things. Here, we describe the scientific objectives targeted by the SPP/FIELDS instrument, the instrument design itself, and the instrument concept of operations and planned data products.
Highlights
The FIELDS instrument on the NASA Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission is a suite of instruments designed to measure DC and fluctuation magnetic and electric fields, plasma wave spectra and polarization properties, the spacecraft floating potential, and solar radio emissions
The fluxgate magnetometers operate in synchronization at 150,000/29 ≈ 292.969 Sa/s, which is exactly 256 Sa/NYsec. This allows FIELDS to sample in synchronization with the electromagnetic cleanliness (EMC) prescribed frequency of 150 kHz avoiding large noise signals from power converters and to maintain the power-of-two data format desired by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithms
The two fluxgate magnetometers (MAGs) for SPP are similar to the triaxial, wide-range, low-power, and low-noise magnetometers built by Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) for MAVEN, Van Allen Probes, STEREO, etc
Summary
The FIELDS instrument on the NASA Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission is a suite of instruments designed to measure DC and fluctuation magnetic and electric fields, plasma wave spectra and polarization properties, the spacecraft floating potential, and solar radio emissions. FIELDS is one of four selected instrument suites, including the Solar Wind Electron Alpha and Protons investigation (SWEAP) (Kasper et al 2016), the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (IS IS) (Mccomas et al 2016), and the Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe Plus (WISPR) (Vourlidas et al 2016) Together, these instruments will measure the plasma, fields, and energetic particle environment of the inner heliosphere to solve the fundamental problem of corona heating and the relationship to the coronal magnetic field. 100k vectors/s 2M vectors/s 1 spectrum/s 1 spectrum/4 s for QTN 1 spectrum/16 s for radio
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