The CubeSat Heliospheric Imaging Experiment (CHIME)

• Published in: 2011 Aerospace Conference pp. 1 - 12
• Main Authors: Dickinson, John, DeForest, Craig, Howard, Tim
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.03.2011
• Subjects: Earth; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetosphere; Meteorology; Space vehicles; Sun
• ISBN: 1424473500; 9781424473502
• ISSN: 1095-323X; 2996-2358
• DOI: 10.1109/AERO.2011.5747285

We describe a CubeSat mission to predict and diagnose space weather events at Earth by tracking the interplanetary disturbances that cause those effects. Our demonstration mission, the CubeSat Heliospheric Imaging Experiment (CHIME), is a wide-field sky camera that can image large, tenuous clouds of material as they cross the inner solar system en-route to Earth. These clouds, known as interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), are produced by magnetic activity at the Sun, and consist of billions of tons of magnetized plasma that streak across the solar system at incredibly high velocities, upwards of 8 million km/hour. Impact of ICMEs on the Earth's magnetosphere cause geomagnetic storms at earth, a type of space weather event. Major space weather events cause magnetic storms, aurora, ionospheric radio interference, and intermittent satellite radiation exposure. ICME tracking requires modest resolution and data rates, and is well suited to the CubeSat platform. CHIME will enable ongoing developmental space weather prediction, demonstrate the heliospheric imaging concept on the Cube- Sat platform, and advance the state of CubeSat readiness for many applications. Further, CHIME is a stepping stone to an agile, operational space weather imaging system, using moderate numbers of extremely inexpensive, redundant spacecraft to achieve robust operational reliability from commercial grade parts.