SFL Missions will develop the RADiation Impacts on Climate and Atmospheric Loss Satellite (RADICALS) mission being led by the University of Alberta.
The RADICALS mission consortium also includes other Canadian Universities including the University of Calgary, Athabasca University, University of New Brunswick, UTIAS and SFL Missions, and is receiving funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Government of Alberta, and the Canadian Space Agency.
According to SFL Missions, the satellite will use the SFL DEFIANT bus which is a widely used platform. SFL said that it will leverage their “flexibility in attitude control approaches and require the spacecraft to spin end-over-end as it travels in a near-polar orbit around Earth. This will enable its suite of multiple instruments to collect continuous measurements of the full angular distribution of the space radiation which rains down into the Earth’s atmosphere, these 360-degree directional measurements being essential for quantifying the energy input with unprecedented accuracy.”
The satellite will be launched “into polar low Earth orbit (LEO), nominally into a near-sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at a nominal altitude of around 550-600km” on a suitable launch, yet to be determined, as a secondary payload. SFL said RADICALS “will carry three multi-sensor instrument suites – an X-ray Imager (XRI), High Energy Particle Telescope (HEPT), and Magnetometers (MAGS), with a total of 11 sensors.”
The science
In the news release, the science of the missions was described as follows.
The RADICALS science team will analyze the measurements collected by the small satellite mission to better characterise space weather, and to understand the effects that space radiation has on the atmosphere, and ultimately its role in the Earth’s climate system. Energetic particles are usually trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field, bouncing back and forth along the field lines. At times of heightened space weather activity, electromagnetic waves in the near-Earth space environment can scatter some of these trapped energetic particles into the atmosphere.
The RADICALS mission will discover the dominant processes which transport these energetic particles into the atmosphere, assess how and when this occurs, and establish their role in coupling the space environment and the Earth’s climate system. Energetic particles from the sun can also enter the Earth’s atmosphere and will be monitored by the RADICALS as it passes over the North and South Poles.
Overall, the RADICALS mission will deliver new physical understanding required to improve space weather forecasting, as well as better understanding of space radiation effects on technological systems, including space radiation warnings for aircraft flying over the poles.
Dr. Robert E. Zee, SFL Missions Director and CEO, said “The primary design objective of RADICALS is creating a spacecraft that is spin stabilized and magnetically quiet. Mission specifications will also require us to accommodate and coordinate among 11 onboard sensors.”