Abstract
We investigate numerically the impact of magnetic field orientation on needle Langmuir probe (NLP) onboard nano-satellites. For this purpose, we model the interaction between the CubeSat and ionospheric plasma under realistic plasma conditions by using the 3D Particle-In-Cell code PTetra. The magnetic field and plasma parameters are estimated from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) and International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) models, respectively. The study demonstrates the effect of magnetic field connectivity by computing the current-voltage characteristics of the NLP on a 3U CubeSat. Three different orientations of the magnetic field are considered such that the probe-spacecraft system is either magnetically connected or magnetically disconnected. The magnetically connected case corresponds to the orientation of the magnetic field in which the magnetic field lines intersect the NLP and the satellite body. Conversely, in the magnetically disconnected case the magnetic field lines intersect the probe but do not intersect the spacecraft body. The current characteristics of the needle probe computed for the cases considered, illustrate the sensitivity of the collected current to the orientation of the magnetic field. It can be inferred that the effect of the magnetic field connectivity can also be taken in to account for the interpretation of in situ measurements of the needle Langmuir probes on CubeSats. The present study will be helpful to understand the detailed interaction between nano-satellites and the low Earth orbit plasma environment.
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Data Availability
The simulation results presented in this study are obtained from open MPI code, PTetra. These results can be reproduced, and simulation results can be provided upon request.
Code Availability
The simulation results are obtained from the open MPI code PTetra which is developed by the co-author Richard Marchand.
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Acknowledgements
The simulations presented in this work made use of the Compute Canada computing facilities. R. Marchand acknowledges the support by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada.
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Imtiaz, N., Marchand, R. & Rizvi, H. Effect of magnetic connectivity on CubeSat needle probe measurement. Astrophys Space Sci 367, 49 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-022-04078-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-022-04078-x