Dione: A pathfinder mission for understanding the Ionosphere-Thermosphere responses to magnetospheric forcing

Advances toward deploying the highly capable 6U cubesat, along with the culmination of our team's miniaturized particle and field sensor development efforts offers the most efficient, cost-effective approach to addressing one of the most urgent questions in Geospace science today: How, and where is energy transmitted between the magnetosphere and ionosphere? Just like the ancient Greek goddess Dione that presided over the oracle, the mission Dione will demonstrate with a comprehensive sensor package in a low cost, flexible assembly a path for better specification and prediction of Ionosphere-Thermosphere (IT) responses to geomagnetic phenomena. Dione's sensor package includes four instruments: a miniaturized fluxgate magnetometer system that will provide science-grade magnetic field measurements with two sensor heads, GRIDS that will measure vector plasma drifts and deduce the in-situ E-fields, DESA (Dual ElectroStatic Analyser) that will measure precipitating particles as well as upgoing secondary electrons, and NMS (Neutral Mass Spectrometer) measuring total neutral density and composition. Dione will be 3-axis stabilized in a circular LEO, high-inclination orbit, traversing the auroral precipitation and high latitude currents in every orbit. Dione will use the design of the 6U Dellingr bus, which was developed at NASA GSFC, and which is scheduled for flight in August 2017. The primary science objective is to quantify how the ionosphere and thermosphere respond to electromagnetic and kinetic energy inputs from the magnetosphere. This energy input is a key parameter in all physics-based models of the IT system and has long been identified as one of the parameters with the largest uncertainties. Dione will, for the first time since the DE2 mission, provide simultaneous measurements of energy input and IT responses. The energy inputs will be quantified as Poynting flux and electron fluxes, while the IT responses will be quantified as ion drifts and temperatures and neutral density and composition. Dione will provide in situ measurements and through its precession will sample all local times and latitudes and under various geomagnetic conditions. Dione will also establish conjunction passes over key ground instrumentation, specifically auroral imagers and radars, and use conjunction observations to study theories of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling and IT heating. We will use global MHD models, kinetic models of precipitating electron fluxes, and models of ionospheric conductivity to understand how the incoming electron fluxes and Poynting flux heat the upper atmosphere and result in the observed aurora and neutral heating. Dione targets the community's need to understand how energy is coupled from the magnetosphere down to the ionosphere and thence into the neutral thermosphere, a focus of the 2012 Heliophysics Decadal Survey, and also addresses aspects of the objectives in future NASA strategic missions DYNAMIC and GDC.

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.

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