Title:

3UCubed Flight Build, Instrument Calibration, and Data Processing

The student collaboration of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is a NASA-funded project to give hands-on experience in space hardware and software to undergraduate students and to build a collaboration between the University of New Hampshire, Sonoma State University, and Howard University. 3UCubed is a 3U CubeSat project within IMAP and is set to launch late in 2025 in a Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) to investigate thermospheric upwelling in the Earth’s cusp regions. The payload consists of two instruments, an Ultraviolet Photomultiplier Tube (UV-PMT) to characterize neutral atomic oxygen and an Electron Retarding Potential Analyzer (ERPA) to measure soft electron precipitation. In preparation for mission launch, we have developed extensive modeling and are undergoing thorough testing. We discuss the thermal analysis done to ensure adequate temperatures during flight, the calibration procedure, flight model assembly, and data processing. Ansys Thermal Desktop is used to create the thermal model. The UV-PMT is calibrated at UNH, where it is placed on a rotating plate in a vacuum chamber with a NIST-calibrated photodiode that is then used for cross-calibration. Finally, Python scripts read and process the data to convert it to scientific units for analysis.

Name

Comment*

Comments are viewable only by submitter

Captcha*