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The LWS Architecture Committee Report

The Role of Small Sats

Angelos Vourlidas

Architecture Committee:

C. M.S. Cohen (chair), T. Berger, M.I. Desai, N. Duncan, G. Ho, N. Maruyama, T. Pulkkinen, A. Szabo, A. Vourlidas, E. Zesta, Y. Zhang

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Background

LWS Program Objectives

Understand how the Sun varies and what drives solar variability
Understand how the Earth and planetary systems respond to dynamic external and internal drivers
Understand how and in what ways dynamic space environments affect human and robotic exploration activities

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LWS Architecture Committee Task

HPD formed a 10-member committee to:

assess the current state of the mission aspect of the LWS program
propose a future LWS program mission architecture
not reviewing the TR&T program

Scheduled time with JHUAPL and GSFC to perform a few mission concept studies

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Strategic Science Areas (SSAs)

Origins and Variability of Global Solar Processes
Solar Eruptive and Transient Heliospheric Phenomena
Acceleration and Transport of Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere
Variability of the Geomagnetic Environment
Dynamics of the Global Ionosphere and Plasmasphere

Ionospheric Irregularities
Composition and Energetics of the Neutral Upper Atmosphere
Radiation and Particle Environment from Near Earth to Deep Space
Solar Impacts on Climate
Stellar Impacts on Planetary Habitability

https://lwstrt.gsfc.nasa.gov/strategic-science-areas-ssas

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LWS Program Architecture

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FMT Derivation Flow

Examine the SSAs and formulate related Science Objectives
Identify the Phenomena to be examined
Determine the Physical Quantities to be measured
Suggest Sample Implementations
Identify needed Technological/Modeling Development

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Summary of Focused Mission Topic Architectures

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Summary of the FMTs developed in this report

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FMT	Concept Name	Design Center	Primary Target
1	Sun-Earth Line Observing System	MDL	Solar-Heliospheric
2	Multi-Spacecraft System to Observe the Dynamics of the Inner Heliosphere	ACE Lab	Solar-Heliospheric
3	Origins of Space Weather	HMCS-based	Solar-Heliospheric
4	Geospace Observing System	MDL	Geospace
5	Magnetospheric Constellation	HMCS-based	Geospace
6	Magnetotail and Inner Magnetosphere Mission	MDL	Geospace
7	Low-Earth-Orbit Constellation for Ionosphere/Thermosphere/�Mesosphere System Observations	MDL	Geospace
8	The Cold Plasma Cycle	---	Geospace
9	Inner Magnetosphere and Radiation Belts Mission	ACE Lab	Geospace
10	Solar Impacts on Climate	---	Solar-Geospace-Earth
11	Earth as an Exoplanet	---	Geospace-Astrophysics
12	PeriGeospace Observing System	ACE Lab orbit only	Solar-Heliospheric-Geospace

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Summary of the technology developments identified during the creation of the FMTs

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Instrumentation	Spacecraft Systems	Processes
Novel instrumentation: THz limb scanner (thermospheric neutral wind profile) OH imager (neutral gravity wave) ENA imaging at mesoscales and below <10 min Cold plasma measurements <1 eV TRL-9 multiband GPS receiver that can operate at GEO Continuous NOx measurements between 60-150 km Simultaneous measurements of energy input to the upper atmosphere and the impacted atmospheric compositions, wind, and temperature Dual-purpose (solar/geospace) imaging systems (e.g., large dynamic range)	Deep-space CubeSats (propulsion, guidance, subsystem reliability) Deep-space CubeSat delivery system Inter-spacecraft communication design/operations Onboard autonomy Deep-space communications High-performance ion engines Advanced, highly automated LEO communications relay network Active potential control of the spacecraft	Inter-spacecraft communication design/operations Transfer/adopt commercial mass production processes for science payloads Create efficient ground operations for managing scientific constellations Increased RF telemetry rates (DSN upgrades, CubeSat-Ka, etc.)
Instrument miniaturization CubeSat-qualified mass spectrometer instruments CubeSat-qualified high-accuracy (nano-g) accelerometer instruments CubeSat-qualified atomic oxygen measurement systems Compact, low size/mass/power particle instruments
Onboard processing capabilities for E‑ and B-field wave measurements

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Takeaway Messages

Although the committee did not a priori restrict concepts based on either size (e.g., flagship versus Explorer versus SmallSat/CubeSat) or type (e.g., single versus multiple spacecraft), the result suggests a “sweet spot” regarding cost versus science return, particularly for the type of system science identified in the SSA goals:

ALL 12 FMTs baseline ESPA or ESPA-Grande architectures
ALL 12 FMTs are multi-spacecraft constellations ranging from 2 to dozens
ALL 12 FMTs are at a nominal Class C level.

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Constellations

Rideshares

Class C/D

ESPA-class

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Recommendations/Discussion points

Programmatic

Update Risk Classification for C/D, and sub-D for constellation and small-sat architectures

E.g., setup expert committee

Investigate & transfer commercial mass production processes for SWx payloads

E.g., Oneweb or Starlink
Science-grade payloads may not be compatible with such processes (TBD)

Technology

Create/Support efficient ground operations for managing SWx constellations; e.g.

Hub-spoke architectures to provide single POC
on-board autonomy developments

Develop a highly automated LEO communications relay network

Also GEO-Deep-Space Relay infrastructure

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