Development of the Suprathermal Particle and Relativistic Electron Magnetic Spectrometer (SuPREMeS)

We propose the development of a novel and innovative design for a magnetic spectrometer to very accurately measure energetic particles and clearly distinguish signals from undesired backgrounds, even in very high intensity radiation environments such as Jupiter's radiation belts and solar energetic particle (SEP) events. The Suprathermal Particle and Relativistic Electron Magnetic Spectrometer (SuPREMeS) design promises drastic improvements over existing instruments, including: i) the ability to directly measure instrument background rates (i.e., from shield-penetrating radiation) and remove them from the signal, providing unparalleled quality of SuPREMeS particle data products; ii) an unprecedented energy range for relativistic electrons (≤ 50 keV up to 10 MeV) and suprathermal ions (~1 MeV to > 12 MeV/nucleon, species dependent) with composition, all within a single, low-resource instrument; iii) multiple, simultaneous measurements over a 360 fan; iv) a low size, mass, and power (SWaP) instrument that enables flight opportunities ranging from focused CubeSat missions to part of the payload on the largest class scientific missions to in situ environmental monitors for space weather. SuPREMeS incorporates lessons learned alongside the best design qualities and aspects of NASA's Van Allen Probes' (RBSP) MagEIS and JUICE's JoEE magnetic spectrometers, which were developed and built by The Aerospace Corporation and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), respectively. Our team consists of early- to mid-career instrument scientists and engineers, who all have experience with spaceflight hardware development, including on the MagEIS and JoEE instruments. It is extremely difficult and rare (to date) to make accurate and reliable measurements of relativistic electrons and high-energy ions in high-intensity radiation environments in space, yet the acceleration of energetic particles in space plasmas remains a top science priority for NASA's Heliophysics and Astrophysics divisions. SuPREMeS has the potential to serve as a new and reliable workhorse for clean and trustworthy energetic particle measurements in a variety of space environments, ranging from Earth's and other planetary radiation belts to SEPs in the solar wind to cosmic rays at the outer extents of our Heliosphere and beyond into the interstellar medium. Possible future missions, which might incorporate SuPREMeS as the primary instrument, as part of a space physics payload suite, or as part of a space weather environmental monitor, include: i) next-generation missions to study Earth's radiation belts, including dedicated CubeSat missions; ii) new missions or payload suites to discover new aspects of the nature of the radiation belt systems at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and/or Neptune; iii) an unprecedently clean and reliable SEP instrument to better understand the nature of electron SEPs and ion composition and associated acceleration mechanisms of SEPs; iv) the nature of cosmic ray electrons, ion composition, and antimatter (SuPREMeS could easily be modified to serve as a positron detector), including the lower energy electrons that were not measured by the Voyagers in the interstellar medium. Not only is SuPREMeS science of high priority to NASA's Heliophysics, but it also offers cross-divisional opportunities for and relevance to science interests of Planetary Science and Astrophysics. This proposal describes the motivation behind SuPREMeS and the science that can be enabled by this new instrument design. The current, TRL-3+ instrument design is described in detail prior to detailing the proposed plan to develop and test a prototype SuPREMeS, with the objective of elevating the design to TRL-6 by the conclusion of the proposed grant work.

Support NASA's Heliophysics strategic science objectives to understand the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, including space weather. This will be achieved by developing/demonstrating instrumentation technology necessary to address the following science goals: Explore the physical processes in the space environment from the Sun to the Earth and throughout the solar system; Advance our understanding of the connections that link the Sun, the Earth, planetary space environments, and the outer reaches of our solar system; Develop the knowledge and capability to detect and predict extreme conditions in space to protect life and society and to safeguard human and robotic explorers beyond Earth.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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