Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?
Graduate
Project Type
individual
Campus
Daytona Beach
Authors' Class Standing
Joshua Milford, Graduate Student Nathan Graves, Graduate Student Henry Valentine, Graduate Student Peter Ribbens, Graduate Student
Lead Presenter's Name
Joshua Milford
Lead Presenter's College
DB College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Mentor Name
Aroh Barjatya
Abstract
Low cost and low size-weight-and-power magnetometers can provide greater accessibility for distributed simultaneous measurements in the ionosphere, either onboard sounding rockets or on CubeSats. The Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Laboratory at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University launched a midlatitude sounding rocket named SpEED Demon from Wallops Flight Facility in August 2022. SpEED Demon has a comprehensive suite of instruments for electrodynamics and neutral dynamics measurements. Among this suite is one high performance Billingsley magnetometer (TFM65VQS) and six commercial-off-the-shelf magnetometers manufactured by the PNI Corporation (RM3100). Of the six, two PNI magnetometers are situated on a deployable boom on the main payload that also carries the Billingsley magnetometer. The remaining four PNI magnetometers are distributed among four ejectable subpayloads. These low-cost and low SWaP magnetometers can achieve a resolution of approximately 1.5 nT and a precision of +/- 4 nT (one sigma) at 15 Hz in a uniform magnetic field. This performance is sufficient for detecting and measuring field aligned currents as well as a variety of other geomagnetic disturbances. The magnetometers are calibrated against an independently calibrated flux-gate magnetometer inside a Helmholtz cage. Zero field offsets are quantified inside a triple-layer mu-metal zero gauss chamber. This work will present the calibration process, the calibration results, and the flight performance of these sensors from the SpEED Demon sounding rocket launch.
Did this research project receive funding support (Spark, SURF, Research Abroad, Student Internal Grants, Collaborative, Climbing, or Ignite Grants) from the Office of Undergraduate Research?
No
Low Cost Magnetometer Calibration and Distributed Simultaneous Multipoint Ionospheric Measurements from a Sounding Rocket Platform
Low cost and low size-weight-and-power magnetometers can provide greater accessibility for distributed simultaneous measurements in the ionosphere, either onboard sounding rockets or on CubeSats. The Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Laboratory at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University launched a midlatitude sounding rocket named SpEED Demon from Wallops Flight Facility in August 2022. SpEED Demon has a comprehensive suite of instruments for electrodynamics and neutral dynamics measurements. Among this suite is one high performance Billingsley magnetometer (TFM65VQS) and six commercial-off-the-shelf magnetometers manufactured by the PNI Corporation (RM3100). Of the six, two PNI magnetometers are situated on a deployable boom on the main payload that also carries the Billingsley magnetometer. The remaining four PNI magnetometers are distributed among four ejectable subpayloads. These low-cost and low SWaP magnetometers can achieve a resolution of approximately 1.5 nT and a precision of +/- 4 nT (one sigma) at 15 Hz in a uniform magnetic field. This performance is sufficient for detecting and measuring field aligned currents as well as a variety of other geomagnetic disturbances. The magnetometers are calibrated against an independently calibrated flux-gate magnetometer inside a Helmholtz cage. Zero field offsets are quantified inside a triple-layer mu-metal zero gauss chamber. This work will present the calibration process, the calibration results, and the flight performance of these sensors from the SpEED Demon sounding rocket launch.