The state corporation Roscosmos announces that the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle has been selected by the Korea Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences (KASI) to launch its small CubeSat satellites as part of the SNIPE mission.
The SNIPE (Small scale magNetospheric and Ionospheric Plasma Experiment) program - "Studies of local properties of magnetospheric and ionospheric plasma" - provides for the deployment of a constellation of four 6U CubeSat spacecraft. The project has been implemented since 2017.
It is assumed that the satellites will be launched into a polar orbit at a height of 600 km. The distances between them will be maintained within the range of 100 m to 1000 km using the constellation flight algorithm.
The main objectives of the mission are to study the fine structures of high-energy electron deposition, the density/temperature of the background plasma, field-aligned currents, and electromagnetic waves.
Specialists intend to study anomalies at high latitudes, such as local zones in the polar caps, field-aligned currents in the aurora oval, electromagnetic ion-cyclotron waves, a local minimum of plasma density in the subpolar region, etc.
The four SNIPE satellites will be launched in two 12U containers. The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with these and other devices will be carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the first or second quarter of 2021.
Source: 3dnews.ru