Mission Concepts for Spacecraft and Lunar-based Radio Source Imaging at Frequencies below the Ionospheric Cutoff

Details Mission Concepts for Spacecraft and Lunar-based Radio Source Imaging at Frequencies below the Ionospheric Cutoff Mission Concepts for Spacecraft and Lunar-based Radio Source Imaging at Frequencies below the Ionospheric Cutoff

Aug 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006iaujd..12e..21g&link_type=abstract

Long Wavelength Astrophysics, 26th meeting of the IAU, Joint Discussion 12, 21 August 2006, Prague, Czech Republic, JD12, #21

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

No present or approved spacecraft mission has the capability to provide high angular resolution imaging of solar or magnetospheric radio bursts or of the celestial sphere at frequencies below the ionospheric cutoff. In this presentation, we review briefly the history of space-based radio observations by single spacecraft. Although these missions did not produce images of discrete radio sources, they did establish important constraints for future imaging missions. Subsequently, we present in detail an active NASA mission proposal to perform such imaging in the frequency range ~30 kHz to 15 MHz. The focus of this mission, the Solar Imaging Radio Array (SIRA), is solar and NASA exploration-oriented, with emphasis on improved understanding and space weather application of radio bursts associated with solar energetic particle (SEP) events and on tracking shocks and other components of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). SIRA will also map the astrophysical sky. SIRA will require a minimum of 12 to 16 micro-satellites to establish a sufficient number of baselines with separations on the order of a kilometer. The baseline microsat is 3-axis stabilized with body-mounted solar arrays and an articulated, earth pointing high gain antenna. The constellation will likely be placed in an L1 halo orbit, which is the preferred location for full-time solar observations. We will also discuss follow-on missions that would be lunar-based, ultimately with of order 10,000 dipole antennas. The lunar missions would be adaptations of ground-based interferometric arrays like LOFAR, LWA, MWA, etc. Basic research in radio astronomy at the Naval Research Laboratory is supported by the Office of Naval Research; part of this work is being carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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