Distributed space-based Ionospheric Multiple Plasma Sensor networks

Distributed small satellite mission concepts are emerging for commercial, scientific, and military applications requiring constellations of many hundreds of satellites. Massively distributed missions allow both simultaneous multipoint observations and significant redundancy. This paper presents an application case study based on the US Air Force Academy's (USAFA) Ionospheric Multiple Plasma Sensors (IMPS) mission. IMPS is an integration of the satellite-on-a-Printed Circuit Board (PCBSat) miniaturization approach developed at the University of Surrey with the Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer (MESA) sensor developed at USAFA.