The ISIS Project: Indications for Future Near-Earth Plasma Studies through Future Galileo Satellites

Abstract

The Earth’s plasmasphere variability is a consequence of the Sun’s forcing, determining our planet’s space weather. Plasmaspheric dynamics could be entirely caught only by studying together global and local proxies of the state of this extended system. The ISIS project (Inter-Satellite & In Situ plasmaspheric monitoring and modelling) aimed to design a system for the continuous monitoring of the Earth’s plasmasphere based on the future Galileo satellites. The efforts and expertise of ISC-CNR (Institute for Complex Systems of the National Research Council of Italy), INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia) and TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space - Italy) were put together in this work of assessment. ISIS Team proposed new experimental facilities of the Galileo satellites, designed to realize inter-satellite and in situ measurements to monitor global and local quantities; in particular, a scalable system of Langmuir probes was suggested, while the TEC along all possible inter-satellite ray paths throughout the plasmasphere could be monitored via phase- and group-delay analysis of inter-satellite radio signals.