CubeSat-Scale UV and RF Remote Sensing Instruments for Upper Atmosphere Research

Increasing opportunities for in-situ measurements of atmospheric state variables (composition, temperatures, drifts) from CubeSats such as the USAF SENSE and the University of Michigan CADRE missions will soon establish a rich set of thermosphere data not available since the era of DE-2. Of particular significance is the parallel development of optical and RF remote sensing instruments purpose built for the CubeSat standard. These sensors are have been flight qualified and are available for inclusion in future CubeSat payloads.This presentation will present an overview of two such remote sensing instruments. The radio aurora explorer (RAX) is an on-orbit UHF bistatic radar that characterizes ionospheric turbulence illuminated by high power ground-based transmitters. The CubeSat Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (CTIP) acquires naturally-occurring 135.6-nm radiance measurements as a proxy for line-of-sight ionospheric density with applications that include both nadir and scanning orientation. We will also discuss RAX and CTIP mission design, highlight recent mission discoveries, and summarize future sensor enhancements.