TY - JOUR
T1 - PACKMAN – A portable instrument to investigate space weather
AU - Mathanlal, Thasshwin
AU - Vakkada Ramachandran, Abhilash
AU - Zorzano, Maria Paz
AU - Martin-Torres, Javier
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors of the paper would like to acknowledge the Dark Matter Research facility, Boulby Mine, UK Center for Astrobiology, Zero2Infinity, Esrange and the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) for their support to this collaborative initiative. The results presented in this paper have been compared with data collected at magnetic observatories. We thank the British Geological Survey for the open-access data from the magnetic observatories and GFZ Postdam for the Kp index data. The authors of the paper would also like to thank Miracle Israel Nazarious for his help with graphs. MPZ has been partially funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) Project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”- Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-104205GB-C21).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - PACKMAN (PArticle Counter k-index Magnetic ANomaly) is an autonomous, light and robust space weather instrument for operation within the subsurface, surface and atmosphere (as payload in stratospheric balloons) of the Earth. It has been designed using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components to reduce the cost of each unit and to allow to have multiple units monitoring simultaneously at different sites and also incorporate an open-access citizen science approach. The hardware-core of each PACKMAN units, weights around 600 g and consumes about 500 mA of current at 12 V. PACKMAN has been deployed at multiple latitudes and altitudes ranging from stratospheric heights (corroborating its TRL8 maturity) to subsurface depths of around 1 km. The data from PACKMAN have been compared with the state-of-the-art ground-based observatories, and satellites and scientific observations have been documented. A 3-D network of PACKMAN units operating continuously around the globe, from the subsurface to the stratosphere, would help to improve the understanding of the space weather phenomena, and its implications on the climate and infrastructures. PACKMAN is also an excellent tool for education and outreach. This article outlines the building instructions of two types of PACKMAN units: PACKMAN-S for ground-based measurements and PACKMAN-B for stratospheric measurements aboard high-altitude balloons.
AB - PACKMAN (PArticle Counter k-index Magnetic ANomaly) is an autonomous, light and robust space weather instrument for operation within the subsurface, surface and atmosphere (as payload in stratospheric balloons) of the Earth. It has been designed using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components to reduce the cost of each unit and to allow to have multiple units monitoring simultaneously at different sites and also incorporate an open-access citizen science approach. The hardware-core of each PACKMAN units, weights around 600 g and consumes about 500 mA of current at 12 V. PACKMAN has been deployed at multiple latitudes and altitudes ranging from stratospheric heights (corroborating its TRL8 maturity) to subsurface depths of around 1 km. The data from PACKMAN have been compared with the state-of-the-art ground-based observatories, and satellites and scientific observations have been documented. A 3-D network of PACKMAN units operating continuously around the globe, from the subsurface to the stratosphere, would help to improve the understanding of the space weather phenomena, and its implications on the climate and infrastructures. PACKMAN is also an excellent tool for education and outreach. This article outlines the building instructions of two types of PACKMAN units: PACKMAN-S for ground-based measurements and PACKMAN-B for stratospheric measurements aboard high-altitude balloons.
KW - COTS
KW - Earth observation
KW - Magnetic anomaly
KW - Open-source
KW - Radiation
KW - Space weather
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099504477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ohx.2020.e00169
DO - 10.1016/j.ohx.2020.e00169
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099504477
VL - 9
JO - HardwareX
JF - HardwareX
SN - 2468-0672
M1 - e00169
ER -