SPRG Seminars
March 13, 2012:
"Outer radiation belt science with the THEMIS mission: Preparing for the RBSP era"
Drew Turner, IGPP, UCLA
Since their launch in 2007, the THEMIS spacecraft have traversed the outer radiation belt near the geomagnetic equator multiple times per day. With their highly eccentric orbits, which take the spacecraft into Earth's plasmasheet, and their identical suites of particle and fields instruments, THEMIS has already significantly contributed to our understanding of relativistic electrons in the outer belt and the various waves that are important to their dynamics. Recently, the THEMIS energetic particle sensors, the Solid State Telescopes, have been been simulated in Geant4 and calibrated, which has opened up a new realm of possibilities for outer belt studies. In this talk, I will briefly review the THEMIS mission and the recent SST updates before delving into the variety of previous and ongoing studies investigating source, loss, and transport mechanisms of outer radiation belt electrons. I finish with a brief discussion of future possibilities for the upcoming RBSP era, with a focus on how THEMIS should prove complementary to the upcoming NASA mission.