The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) is a NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 mission under the Living With a Star

Living With a Star

Living With a Star is a NASA scientific program to study those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is a crosscutting initiative with goals and objectives relevant to NASA's Exploration Initiative, as well as to NASA's Strategic Enterprises...

 (LWS) program. The goal of the LWS program is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to effectively address those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The mission of RBSP is to gain scientific understanding (to the point of predictability) of how populations of relativistic electrons and ions in space form or change in response to changes in solar activity and the solar wind.

General

The RBSP mission is currently scheduled for 2012. The Critical Design Review for the mission was completed in December 2009. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Goddard Space Flight Center

The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. GSFC,...

 manages the overall Living With a Star

Living With a Star

Living With a Star is a NASA scientific program to study those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is a crosscutting initiative with goals and objectives relevant to NASA's Exploration Initiative, as well as to NASA's Strategic Enterprises...

 program of which RBSP is a project, along with Solar Dynamics Observatory

Solar Dynamics Observatory

The Solar Dynamics Observatory is a NASA mission which will observe the Sun for over five years. Launched on February 11, 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star program...

 (SDO). The Applied Physics Laboratory

Applied Physics Laboratory

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory , located in Howard County, Maryland near Laurel and Columbia, is a not-for-profit, university-affiliated research center employing 4,500 people. APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of...

 is responsible for the overall implementation and instrument management for RBSP. The primary mission is scheduled to last 2 years, with expendables expected to last for 4 years.

Launch vehicle

On Mar. 16, 2009 United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced that NASA had awarded ULA a contract to launch RBSP using an Atlas V

Atlas V

Atlas V is an active expendable launch system in the Atlas rocket family. Atlas V was formerly operated by Lockheed Martin, and is now operated by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance...

 401 rocket. RBSP will launch from NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...

 (KSC).

Spacecraft

RBSP consists of two spin stabilized spacecraft. Both spacecraft will launch from a single EELV-class Launch Vehicle.

Instruments

NASA Funded Investigations:

1. Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) Instrument Suite http://www.bu.edu/csp/RBSP-ECT/index.html; The Principal Investigator is Harlan Spence http://rbsp-ect.sr.unh.edu/team.shtml from University of New Hampshire
   University of New Hampshire
   The University of New Hampshire is a public university in the University System of New Hampshire , United States. The main campus is in Durham, New Hampshire. An additional campus is located in Manchester. With over 15,000 students, UNH is the largest university in New Hampshire. The university is...
   
   . Key partners in this investigation LANL, Southwest Research Institute
   Southwest Research Institute
   Southwest Research Institute , headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States...
   
   , Aerospace Corporation, LASP
   Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
   The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics is a research organization at the University of Colorado at Boulder. LASP is a research institute with over 100 research scientists ranging in fields from solar influences, to Earth's and other planetary atmospherics processes, space weather, space...
   
   
2. Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS); The Principal Investigator is Craig Kletzing from the University of Iowa
   University of Iowa
   The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
   
   .
3. Electric Field and Waves Instrument (EFW); The Principal Investigator is John Wygant from University of Minnesota
   University of Minnesota
   The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
   
   . Key partners in this investigation include the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
4. Radiation Belt Storm Probes Ion Composition Experiment (RBSPICE); The Principal Investigator is Lou Lanzerotti http://physics.njit.edu/people/lanzerotti.php from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Key partners include the Applied Physics Laboratory
   Applied Physics Laboratory
   The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory , located in Howard County, Maryland near Laurel and Columbia, is a not-for-profit, university-affiliated research center employing 4,500 people. APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of...
   
    and Fundamental Technologies, LLC http://www.ftecs.com.

Government Furnished Equipment:

1. Relativistic Particle Spectrometer (RPS) from the National Reconnaissance Office
   National Reconnaissance Office
   The National Reconnaissance Office , located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. It designs, builds, and operates the spy satellites of the United States government.-Mission:...
   
   

Milestones

1) Mission Concept Review (MCR) successfully completed, January 30-31, 2007

2) SR-MDR successfully completed, October, 2007

3) Preliminary Design review, October, 2008

4) Confirmation review, January, 2009

External links

• RBSP Education and Public Outreach Website http://rbsp.jhuapl.edu