ACSEPT: A Compact Solar Energetic Particle Telescope (ACSEPT)

The process through which particles are energized and transported within the heliosphere remains a major outstanding question in heliophysics. A number of acceleration mechanics have been proposed such as shock acceleration and acceleration in the lower solar atmosphere, and each has characteristic time-scales, energy spectra, as well as implications for mass-dependence acceleration. In order to separate the relative effect of these acceleration and transport mechanisms, energetic particle measurements are needed over a wide range of energy and over a variety of ion species, including heavy ions. ACSEPT: A Compact Solar Energetic Particle Telescope (pronounced "accept"), leverages high heritage energetic particle telescope elements while also providing innovative front-end electronics development to enable particle detection over a large energy range and ion species. The front-end electronics advancement proposed here includes the development of a new multichannel Boston Extended Amplitude Range (BEAR) ASIC chip with an innovative charge-sensitive preamplifier (CSA) that will enable broad extended-range energy measurements. Although the BEAR chip will be developed as part of the ACSEPT instrument, the chip will also demonstrate this promising and novel CSA technology that could be used for a variety of energetic particle detectors in many space science environments. Additionally, the chip will be available for other instruments for the community as well. Although a number of groups and institutes in the community are developing energetic particle detectors, very few are advancing the necessary front-end electronics proposed to be developed here. ACSEPT is a standalone instrument that will measure ~0.5-100 MeV/nuc ions from H to Fe from a 1.5U form factor with low power and mass requirements. ACSEPT offers an expansion in energy range by two orders of magnitude over other particle detectors developed for small satellite and CubeSat platforms. Although the innovative front-end electronics provides the ability to detect a broad extended energy range, ACSEPT will occupy a similar volume and have similar power consumption and mass to previous compact energetic particle telescopes. A low resource, large energy range, energetic particle telescope such as ACSEPT will enable multipoint energetic particle measurements within the heliosphere. Such a measurement would be transformative for our scientific understanding but is cost-prohibitive from a large spacecraft platform.

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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