CASPER: A Space Mission Concept to Investigate Transient Luminous Events and Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes
- 1University of Graz, Graz, Austria (m.maurer0306@gmail.com)
- 2KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (gwendal.henaff@gmail.com)
- 3Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway (ulrikfalkpetersen@gmail.com)
- 4Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark (ali-hamdoun@hotmail.com)
- 5École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France (gwendal.henaff@gmail.com)
- 6Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg (kilian.huber@list.lu)
- 7Politehnica University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania (andreeailass15@gmail.com)
- 8Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria (nadja.reisinger15@gmail.com)
- 9Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany (sinjan@mps.mpg.de)
- 10Vanderbilt University / Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Nashville, USA (criselsuarez@gmail.com)
- 11Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Budapest, Hungary (andraska1456@gmail.com)
- 12University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland (vertti.tarvus@helsinki.fi)
- 13University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK (m.tsinidi@gmail.com)
- 14Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland (officialvaganov@gmail.com)
As part of the Alpbach Summer School, a collaboration between FFG, ESA and ISSI, a team of students developed the F-class CASPER mission concept to investigate Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) and Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes (TGFs). These lightning-related plasma phenomena, first detected on Earth in 1989, typically occur in the mesosphere at an altitude between 50-100 km. The UVS instrument onboard the JUNO mission detected several similar events on Jupiter, and they are expected to also occur on other planets.
The CASPER mission consists of two identical spacecraft, each of which will be equipped with three cameras in different wavelengths and four high speed sensors, the latter will function as triggers to start the data acquisition of higher resolution images. A system chosen to combat the transient characteristic of the events (lifetime < 300 ms). While three sensors will be taking measurements of photons, one will quantify the electron flux in order to constrain the role of TLEs and TGFs in the global electric circuit.
The second great area of interest is the vertical structure of TLEs as well as their global distribution and occurrence rates. To achieve this, data will be captured using a two-satellite train in a sun-synchronous low earth orbit. The orbit is inclined at 98° and the satellites are phased at an angle of 5.2° to observe these events from two points of view simultaneously. The operational mission lifetime is five years, with a possible extension.
How to cite: Maurer, M., Byrne, L., Falk-Petersen, U., Hamdoun, A., Hénaff, G., Huber, K., Ilas, A., Reisinger, N., Sinjan, J., Suarez, C., Szilágy-Sándor, A., Tarvus, V., Tsindis, M., and Vaganov, M.: CASPER: A Space Mission Concept to Investigate Transient Luminous Events and Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12033, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12033, 2023.
