Abstract

    Observing particles and waves on a single satellite suffers from inherent space-time ambiguity. Recently, such ambiguity has often been resolved by multi-satellite observations, but the inter-satellite distances were larger than 100 kilometers. Hence, the ambiguity could be resolved only for large-scale (>100 km) structures while various micro-scale phenomena have been observed at the low altitude satellite orbits. To observe spatial and temporal variations of the micro-scale plasma structures on the topside ionosphere, four nano-satellites (~ 10 kg) will be launched into a polar orbit of the altitude of ~600 km. Two pairs of satellites will be deployed in orbit, and the distances of each satellite will be controlled from 10 km to 100 km by formation flying algorithm. The SNIPE mission is equipped with scientific payloads which can measure the following geophysical parameters: density/temperature of cold ionospheric plasmas, energetic electron flux, and magnetic field vectors. All the payloads should have a high temporal resolution (sampling rates of about 10 Hz (TBD)). This mission shall be launched in 2020.