Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) - A Science-Oriented, University 3U CubeSat

Abstract

The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) is a 3-Unit (3U) CubeSat developed at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). Over 40 students contributed to the project with professional mentorship and technical contributions from professors in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at CU and from LASP scientists and engineers. The scientific objective of MinXSS is to study processes in the dynamic Sun, from quiet-Sun to solar flares, and to further understand how these changes in the Sun influence the Earth's atmosphere by providing unique spectral measurements of solar soft x-rays (SXRs). The enabling technology providing the advanced solar SXR spectral measurements is the Amptek X123, a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) silicon drift detector (SDD). The Amptek X123 has a low mass (~324 g after modification), modest power consumption (~2.50 W), and small volume (6.86 cm x 9.91 cm x 2.54 cm), making it ideal for a CubeSat. This paper provides an overview of the MinXSS mission: the science objectives, project history, subsystems, and lessons learned that can be useful for the small-satellite community.

32 pages, 13 figures, 1 table; submitted to Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

References in corpus (2)

• RHESSI Line and Continuum Observations of Super-hot Flare Plasma
• Statistical Properties of Super-hot Solar Flares

Cited by in corpus (23)

• Microflare Heating of a Solar Active Region Observed with NuSTAR, Hinode/XRT, and SDO/AIA
• The Instruments and Capabilities of the Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSats
• New Solar Irradiance Measurements from the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat
• MinXSS-2 CubeSat mission overview: Improvements from the successful MinXSS-1 mission
• The existence of hot X-ray onsets in solar flares
• Joint X-ray, EUV and UV Observations of a Small Microflare
• First flight of the Gamma-Ray Imager/Polarimeter for Solar flares (GRIPS) instrument
• Soft X-Ray Observations of Quiescent Solar Active Regions using Novel Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS)
• Achievements and Lessons Learned from Successful Small Satellite Missions for Space Weather-Oriented Research
• First Results for Solar Soft X-ray Irradiance Measurements from the Third Generation Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer
• Small Satellite Mission Concepts for Space Weather Research and as Pathfinders for Operations
• Simulating Solar Flare Irradiance with Multithreaded Models of Flare Arcades
• The Multi-Instrument (EVE-RHESSI) DEM for Solar Flares, and Implications for Non-Thermal Emission
• Study of Time Evolution of Thermal and Non-Thermal Emission from an M-Class Solar Flare
• CubeSats for Gamma-Ray Astronomy
• Addressing Gaps in Space Weather Operations and Understanding with Small Satellites
• Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies
• NinjaSat: Astronomical X-ray CubeSat Observatory
• Simultaneous High Dynamic Range Algorithm, Testing, and Instrument Simulation
• The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSats: spectrometer characterization techniques, spectrometer capabilities, and solar science objectives
• Modeling the Daily Variations of the Coronal X-ray Spectral Irradiance with Two Temperatures and Two Emission Measures
• Superhot (> 30 MK) flare observations with STIX: Joint spectral fitting
• The Sun as an X-ray star V.: A new method to retrieve coronal filling factors