AERO / VISTA

AERO and VISTA [MIT]

The AERO-VISTA is a mission featuring twin 6U CubeSat spacecraft to study the Earth’s aurora from space led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory.

The AERO (Auroral Emission Radio Observer) is a one-year CubeSat mission in polar orbit that will significantly advance the knowledge by examining radio emissions from the auroral acceleration region in near-Earth space. AERO uses a unique electromagnetic vector sensor (VS) to study auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) at low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) ranges, from 100 kHz–5 MHz, with six orthogonal dipole and loop antennas providing angle-of-arrival and polarization information within a single unit.

Auroral radio emissions in the LF and HF ranges allow radio remote sensing, leading to investigation of nonlinear wave processes and wave-particle interactions operating in a broad range of heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical plasmas. The mission will store many orbits of compressed data on board, then select download segments based either on summary spectrogram ground analysis or on automatic detection of bright auroral radio events. AERO is also a stepping stone to a novel space-borne high-capability remote sensing platform for diverse scientific targets such as radio emission from the solar corona and inner heliosphere, and anisotropic turbulence properties of interplanetary medium plasma.

VISTA (Vector Interferometry Space Technology using AERO) is AERO’s twin and will demonstrate novel radio interferometric technology. The AERO and VISTA CubeSats both host vector-sensing antenna systems providing advanced electromagnetic capabilities. Together, they will provide the first in-space demonstration of interferometric imaging, beamforming, and nulling using electromagnetic vector sensors at low frequencies (100 kHz–15 MHz). A key goal of the joint missions’ technology demonstration is to validate theoretical sensor performance modeling indicating that interferometric arrays composed of vector sensors will be able to maintain sensitivity even in the presence of terrestrial interference. If validated in flight, this capability would relax the requirement that space-based low-frequency interferometers be placed far from the Earth (e.g., lunar orbit), and the closer communications range will significantly increase the data volume returned from space-based radio telescope systems. The two-spacecraft AERO-VISTA mission will address the auroral science goals of AERO while adding three additional technology demonstration goals enabled by the second CubeSat, VISTA.

The AERO and VISTA CubeSats will launch and deploy together into a polar orbit. Once in orbit, the relative separation between the spacecraft will be controlled via differential drag in order to perform the vector sensor interferometry demonstration. After this demonstration is complete, the spacecraft will be allowed to drift apart. Throughout the mission, AERO will carry out science activities focused on observing and localizing natural auroral radio emission while VISTA will perform its RFI survey. At times of high auroral activity, both AERO and VISTA will shift to data collection over the auroral zones, providing new insight into the time evolution of auroral emission features. I

They were selected in 2021 by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) to be launched as part of the ELaNa program.