Joint NASA-Brazil SPORT CubeSat Mission Will Unlock Complex Equatorial Phenomena, Lay Groundwork for Better Space Weather Prediction
Hello reader!
It follows a release published on day (08/03), in the NASA’s
website, highlighting that joint NASA-Brazil SPORT CubeSat Mission will unlock
Complex Equatorial Phenomena, lay groundwork for better Space Weather
Prediction.
Duda Falcão
RELEASE 17-053
Joint NASA-Brazil SPORT CubeSat Mission Will
Unlock
Complex Equatorial Phenomena,
Lay Groundwork for Better Space
Weather
Prediction
Editor:
Kristine Rainey
Aug. 3, 2017
Last
Updated: Aug. 4, 2017
Credits: NASA/Jim Spann
 |
At Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research Integration
and Testing Laboratory, the SPORT team checks out a prototype SPORT CubeSat fabricated by Technical Aeronautics Institute in São Paulo. |
NASA and
a team of Brazilian space researchers have announced a joint CubeSat mission
to study phenomena in Earth's upper atmosphere -- a region of charged
particles called the ionosphere -- capable of disrupting communications and
navigation systems on the ground and potentially impacting satellites and human
explorers in space.
Two
phenomena in the ionosphere -- equatorial plasma bubbles and scintillation --
have impacted radio communication systems, satellite technologies and global
positioning system (GPS) signals for decades, said Jim Spann, chief scientist
for the Science and Technology Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Equatorial plasma bubbles are regions of
comparatively low density which may elongate into towering plumes during
high-intensity periods. Scintillation is a unique type of atmospheric
fluctuation that can interrupt radio frequencies, much like the
"twinkling" effect seen in starlight when optical frequencies are
disrupted.
The
Scintillation Prediction Observations Research Task (SPORT) mission, funded by
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, will observe these peculiar
structures in order to understand what causes them, determine how to predict
their behavior and assess ways to mitigate their effects.
The
joint U.S.-Brazilian team, led by Spann as principal investigator, will design
and launch SPORT as a CubeSat, a compact satellite about the size of two loaves
of bread. It will be launched in 2019 to an Earth orbit approximately 217-248
miles high (350-400 km). Its operational phase is expected to last at least a
year.
"Degraded
communications and GPS signals are known to be closely linked to these
phenomena," Spann said. It's his goal to shed new light on these
phenomena and inspire new operational solutions to contend with the disturbed
conditions.
Credits: The Aerospace Corporation
 |
Research
scientist Dr. Rebecca Bishop, left, and
design engineer Steve Bielat of The
Aerospace
Corporation in El Segundo, California, test a sensor
set to fly on
the joint American and Brazilian SPORT
Cubesat mission to study disruptive
phenomena
in Earth's upper atmosphere.
|
Protecting
Brazil's Aviation, Agriculture
The
Brazilian SPORT team seeks targeted solutions as well. Otavio Durão, project
manager for the team at Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) in São
Jose dos Campos, a São Paulo municipality, said ionospheric responses to a
space phenomenon called the South Atlantic Anomaly or the South American
Magnetic Anomaly -- where space radiation dips close to Earth -- negatively
impacts Brazil's busy airports. "Our country is interested in refining GPS
signal processing, making takeoffs and landings safer and more precise,"
he said. "Because so many international flights come to and through
Brazil, this should be a matter of concern for all countries."
Brazil's
strong agricultural industry also is concerned about the anomaly's effects on
GPS, said Durão's colleague Dr. Luís Loures, the SPORT spacecraft manager at
the Instituto Tecnológico da Aeronáutica in São Jose dos Campos. "Our
agribusiness is always trying to increase crop productivity," he said.
"One way to accomplish this is by using automated tools. But being able to
precisely position those automated tractors and field sprayers, without
disruption from solar phenomena, is crucial."
"As
society becomes more dependent every day on space-based technology -- cell
phones, self-driving cars, secure military communications -- it's critically
important we first understand the environment in which our technology resides,
then learn how to operate through and preserve it from potentially disruptive
or damaging interference," Spann said.
Understanding
the Phenomena
Building
on decades of previous ground-based studies of plasma bubbles over equatorial
regions, especially intensive research in Brazil and Peru, SPORT will help
researchers determine what's happening in the ionosphere to stir up the
bubbles, why they form along the equator and what causes them to appear at
night. Plasma bubbles and scintillation are global equatorial and mid-latitude
phenomena, made worse by the South American Magnetic Anomaly, where Earth's
magnetic equator dips close to Earth.
"Many
of the discoveries to date have been confined to a limited number of
longitudinal sectors," Spann said. "SPORT will make a systematic
study of the ionosphere at all longitudes around the planet, documenting the
conditions that trigger formation of the bubbles, with particular focus on the
South American sector."
As multiple
instruments on the ground also record data, Spann said, SPORT will probe the
ionosphere from above. During subsequent passes, it will study specific sectors
to identify conditions favorable for developing plasma bubbles and ionospheric
scintillations. These simultaneous satellite and ground-based studies will help
researchers identify how the observations are related, providing a better
understanding of the results at all longitudes.
The team
is confident the findings will enable researchers to use physics-based models
to determine the physics of plasma bubble triggers, and thus identify the
resulting scintillation of radio signals that propagate throughout the
turbulent region.
Credits:
NASA/MSFC
In this
artist's animation, the signal beamed to Earth by a generic satellite is
disrupted by phenomena in Earth's ionosphere. Regions of comparatively low
density called equatorial plasma bubbles, depicted here as a shifting blue band
in the upper atmosphere, combine with scintillations, atmospheric fluctuations
similar to the "twinkling" effect seen in starlight when optical
frequencies are disrupted, to interrupt and disperse the satellite's signal.
These phenomena -- which threaten satellite communications, put human space
explorers at risk and often disrupt communications and navigation systems on the
ground -- are the focus of the joint NASA-Brazilian Cubesat mission known as
the Scintillation Prediction Observations Research Task, or SPORT mission.
Funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington and led by NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, SPORT will be launched in
2019 for a year-long data-gathering mission.
More
About SPORT
SPORT
science mission data will be distributed from and archived at the EMBRACE
space-weather forecasting center in Brazil's National Institute for Space
Research (INPE) and mirrored at the Space Physics Data Facility at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The
SPORT mission management team is led by Marshall alongside its international
partners, the Brazilian Space Agency in Brasília, and the National
Institute for Space Research and Technical Aeronautics Institute, both in São
Jose dos Campos, São Paulo. Spann's team, which oversees the mission science,
flight instruments and the CubeSat launch, includes researchers at Marshall;
Goddard; Utah State University in Logan, Utah; The Aerospace Corporation in El
Segundo,
California; the University of Texas at Dallas; and the University of Alabama in
Huntsville. NASA's Brazilian partners are overseeing the development of the
spacecraft; integration and testing; mission operations; data management and
dissemination; and the ground observation network. The science analysis will be
conducted by the entire team.
SPORT is
part of NASA's Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science
program. NASA's heliophysics mission includes research into the effects of the
sun on Earth, its atmosphere and the planets of our solar system. To learn
more, visit:
Learn
more about NASA and Marshall's science mission online:
Molly
Porter
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
Source: NASA’s
website - http://www.nasa.gov
Comentário: Bom leitor, esta
missão conjunta SPORT entre a NASA/INPE e o ITA (já abordada aqui no Blog), talvez nas entre linhas seja a
última oportunidade dada pelos americanos ao Brasil no que diz respeito a
projetos espaciais conjuntos, buscando assim nesta missão de baixo custo saber
ate onde vai o compromisso brasileiro, já que a experiência anterior foi
desastrosa na época da construção da ISS (Estação Espacial Internacional),
coisa que acabou resultando na vergonhosa expulsão brasileira do projeto. Neste caso
específico leitor, como é uma missão de baixo custo que utilizará uma plataforma
cubesat, o risco é pequeno e qualquer pisada de bola do lado brasileiro, a própria
NASA se encarregará de levar adiante o projeto, ou mesmo abandoná-lo sem
grandes prejuízos. Isto é, se for o caso. Aproveitamos para agradecer ao Dr. Waldemar Castro Leito
Filho pelo envio desta notícia.
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