tesseract: a nanosatellite-scale, high-stability fluxgate magnetometer for constellation cissions
- Paper number
IAC-20,A7,3,4,x59663
- Author
Mr. Kenton Greene, United States, University of Iowa
- Year
2020
- Abstract
Accurate high-precision magnetic field measurements are a significant challenge for many applications including nanosatellite constellation missions studying the magnetosphere. Instrument stability, orthogonality, and linearity are essential in a constellation setting to enable meaningful comparison between disparate satellites without extensive cross-calibration efforts. We describe the design and validation of Tesseract: a low noise, high stability fluxgate magnetometer for suitable for nanosatellite applications. Tesseract’s design takes advantage of recent developments in the manufacturing of custom low noise fluxgate cores. Tesseract uses a novel configuration of six custom racetrack geometry cores mounted within a three-axis symmetric glass-filled polyether ether ketone (PEEK) base. Tesseract’s feedback windings are configured as a four-square Merritt Coils to create a ‘magnetic null’ inside the sensor where the fluxgate cores are held in near-zero field. This ensures that the fluxgate cores always experience a near zero magnetic field, regardless of the ambient magnetic field which we hypothesize improves the linearity of the sensor response. Biot-Savart simulation was used to optimize the homogeneity of field generated by the feedback Merritt Coils and was verified experimentally to be homogeneous within one percent. Tesseract achieves a magnetic noise floor of 6-7 pT/√Hz at one Hz. We expect that the three-axis symmetry of the sensor will improve its stability over a large range of temperatures such as might be experienced in planetary science missions. We are in the process of manufacturing a high-fidelity laboratory prototype of the Tesseract sensor and will conduct thermal vacuum and vibration qualification testing. Tesseract will be flight demonstrated on the ACES-II sounding rockets in December 2021.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)