Valentina Scotti

The Data Processor System of EUSO Balloon: in flight performance.

The EUSO-Balloon experiment is a pathfinder mission for JEM-EUSO which has as its main objective an end-to-end test of all the key technologies and instrumentation of JEM-EUSO detectors. The instrument is a telescope of smaller dimension with respect to the one designed for the ISS, it is mounted in an unpressurized gondola of a stratospheric balloon. It was launched during the CNES flight campaign in August 2014 from the Timmins (Ontario) base. The flight lasted about five hours and the payload reached a float altitude of about 38 km. In this paper we will present the Data Processor (DP) of EUSO-Balloon. The DP is the component of the electronics system which performs the data handling and, through the interface with the telemetry system, allows the controlling and the monitoring of the instrument from ground. We will describe the main components of the system and their performance during the flight.

The Data Processor System of EUSO-SPB

We will present the Data Processor (DP) and the flight software of EUSO-SPB. The EUSO-SPB experiment is a pathfinder mission of the EUSO program having as main objective to detect Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) by measuring, for the first time from the space, the fluorescence and the Cerenkov light produced by the interaction of the particle with the nuclei of the Earths atmosphere. The instrument is a telescope of smaller dimension in respect to the one designed for the ISS, mounted on an unpressurised gondola of a super pressure pumpkin balloon. EUSO-SPB was launched from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility of Wanaka Airport (New Zealand) on the 24th of April 2017, 22:50 and lasted for 12 days 4.5 hours aloft.

EUSO-Balloon: Observation and Measurement of Tracks from a Laser in a Helicopter

EUSO-Balloon is a prototype detector of the Extreme Universe Space Observatory on the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO). EUSO-Balloon was flown successfully as a balloon payload from the Timmins Stratospheric Balloon Launch Facility in Ontario, Canada on 2014 August 24-25 at an altitude of 38 km. To simulate the optical signatures of UV fluorescence photons emitted from cosmic ray air showers generated in the atmosphere, a pulsed UV laser and two UV flashers (LED and Xe) were used. These sources were fired in the instrument field of view for about 2 hours from a helicopter that circled at an altitude of 3 km under the balloon. UV signals were effectively detected, including 270 laser track events. We describe the helicopter laser system and the geometric reconstruction of the laser events that were generated by this system. We report here on the reconstruction of the laser events starting from the information contained in the observed tracks. We note that this work represents the first observation and measurement of aircraft based laser tracks by an optical fluorescence detector flown at near space altitudes.

Performance of the EUSO-Balloon electronics

The 24th of August 2014, the EUSO-BALLOON instrument went for a night flight for several hours, 40 km above Timmins (Canada) balloon launching site, concretizing the hard work of an important part of the JEM-EUSO collaboration started 3 years before. This instrument consists of a telescope made of two lenses and a complex electronic chain divided in two mains sub-systems: the PDM (photo detector module) and the DP (data processing). Each of them is made of several innovative elements developed and tested in a short time. This paper presents their performances before, during and after the flight.

The onboard software of the EUSO-SPB pathfinder experiment

In this paper, the flight software architecture of the EUSO‐SPB mission is described. The JEM‐EUSO program aims at developing an advanced large space‐borne UV telescope designed to detect ultra high energy cosmic rays. In this framework, the EUSO‐SPB experiment is the third pathfinder mission of the JEM‐EUSO program, the second that has been launched on a stratospheric balloon to test the technological readiness of the detectors and to carry out some preliminary scientific observations. The EUSO‐SPB software has a modular structure conceived to control all the instruments and the ancillary subsystems, to acquire data, and to manage data transfer to ground. System programming in C and C++ languages and Bash scripts have been used to implement and run the modules. The software runs on the data processor, an onboard computer that communicates with several payload blocks, the UV sensor, and the synchronization and time tagging board. The control software module controls all the subsystems, provides communication to ground through the NASA telemetry or the Internet, runs the acquisition control and download software, and manages the execution of the acquisition software. The acquisition software module directly operates the subsystems for the data acquisition activity. The acquisition control and download software module runs the acquisition software upon request of the control software and transfers scientific data to ground. The software system performed as expected during the flight on April 2017.

The EUSO-SPB mission

EUSO-SPB (Extreme Universe Space Observatory - Super Pressure Balloon) is an experiment on board a super pressure balloon for a flight duration which may reach 100 days. The instrument was launched on the 25th April 2017 from Wanaka in New Zealand; the flight was terminated after 12 days aloft. The instrument is an updated version of the EUSO-Balloon one. It includes a full original JEM-EUSO PDM (Photon Detection Module with 2304 pixels), and an optical system with two Fresnel lenses with a side of 1 meter covering a field of view of nearly +-6 degrees. The main scientific objective is the first observation and measurements of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Air Showers by looking down from near space with a fluorescence detector. The EUSO-SPB will also search for UV pulse like signatures from other objects as meteoroids, atmosphere TLEs, SQM, LSPs and it will measure slowly varying UV light as airglow, bioluminescence events over the ocean.

Study on the High Energy Particle Detector calorimeter

The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) is one of the payloads of the CSES space mission, built by the Italian “Limadou” collaboration. It will study the temporal stability of the inner Van Allen radiation belts, the precipitation of trapped particles in the atmosphere and the low energy component of the cosmic rays (5 - 100 MeV for electrons and 15 - 300 MeV for protons). Results of the test beams held at the Beam Test Facility of the INFN National Laboratory of Frascati, for electrons, and at the Proton Cyclotron of Trento, for protons, will be presented. The performance of the apparatus both on the energy reconstruction and in the lepton/hadron separation will be shown.

The high energy particle detector onboard the CSES satellite

The China Seismo Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) aims to contribute to the monitoring of earthquakes from space. This space mission will study electromagnetic phenomena and their correlation with the geophysical activity. The satellite will be launched in 2017 and will host several instruments onboard: two magnetometers, an electrical field detector, a plasma analyzer, a Langmiur probe and an High Energy Particle Detector (HEPD). The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD), developed by the Italian Collaboration, detects electrons, protons and light nuclei. The main objective is to measure the increases of the electron and proton fluxes due to short-time perturbations of the radiation belts caused by solar and terrestrial phenomena. Before building the Flight Model of the instrument, three different models have been realized and tested in laboratory to assess the compliance of the HEPD characteristics and to verify the detector performances. The last model, identical to the Flight Model, has also been tested at the Beam Test Facility of Frascati with electron beams of energies comprised between 30 and 150 MeV. In this paper a description of the HEPD apparatus, its main characteristics and preliminary results of the calibration will be presented.

The EUSO-Balloon instrument

EUSO-Balloon is a pathfinder mission for JEM-EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory on-board the Japanese Experiment Module), the near-UV telescope proposed to be installed on board the International Space Station (ISS) before the end of this decade. The main objective of this pathfinder mission is to perform a full scale end-to-end test of all the key technologies and instrumentation of JEM-EUSO detectors and to prove the entire detection chain. The JEM-EUSO instrument consists of an UV telescope designed to focus the signal of the UV tracks generated by Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays propagating in Earth’s atmosphere, onto a finely pixelized UV camera. The EUSO-Balloon instrument, smaller than the one designed for the ISS, is currently developed as a payload of a stratospheric balloon operated by the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and will be launched during the CNES flight campaign in August 2014. This telescope will point towards the nadir from a float altitude of about 40 km. With its Fresnel Optics and Photo-Detector Module, EUSO-Balloon will monitor a 12◦×12◦ wide field of view in a wavelength range between 290 and 430 nm, at a rate of 400’000 frames/sec. In this paper, we will review the main stages of the signal processing of the EUSO-Balloon instrument: the photodetection, the analog electronics, the trigger stages, which select events while rejecting random background, the electronic acquisition system which performs the data management and the monitoring, allowing the instrument control during operation.