HR: 0800h
AN: SM31A-0241    [Abstracts]
TI: A New Perspective on Inner Zone Proton Data from 1971
AU: * Mazur, J E
EM: joseph.mazur@aero.org
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 15049 Conference Center Drive, Chantilly, VA 20151, United States
AU: Blake, J B
EM: jbernard.blake@aero.org
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245, United States
AU: Kolasinski, W A
EM: Wojciech.A.Kolasinski@aero.org
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245, United States
AU: Katz, N
EM: Norman.Katz@aero.org
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245, United States
AU: Vampola, A
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245, United States
AU: Looper, M D
EM: mark.looper@aero.org
AF: The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245, United States
AB: The NASA Geospace Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission will provide a new look at the inner magnetosphere, including the inner zone protons that originate from the decay of neutrons in interactions from galactic cosmic rays with the upper atmosphere. The G-RBSP mission is scheduled for launch in 2012. About forty years prior to the launch of G-RBSP, the US Air Force Orbiting Vehicle 20 (OV1-20) included instrumentation designed to capture a glimpse of the inner zone proton environment up to ~500 MeV. The Aerospace Corporation flew a Cherenkov counter on the OV1-20 propulsion module in a polar orbit of 130 km by ~1950 km; apogee was near the equator, and on-board hardware triggered the transmitter when the count rates were high. The data included singles rates, coincidence rates, and on-board magnetometer measurements. The Cherenkov counter used a fast coincidence between pairs of scintillator disk detectors to define the geometry, thus providing clean measurements in the penetrating, high-rate inner zone environment. The propulsion module re-entered about 10 days after launch in 1971. While the OV1-20 mission life was short, the data could offer an interesting look into the environment near the G-RBSP perigee. We will revisit the OV1-20 proton measurements with the perspective of the science and engineering requirements of G-RBSP as well as results from later missions that also sampled the inner zone protons from different orbits (CRRES; TSX-5; SAMPEX). This work was supported under The Aerospace Corporation's Independent Research and Development Program.
DE: 2720 Energetic particles: trapped
DE: 2730 Magnetosphere: inner
DE: 2774 Radiation belts
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting