Development of a Bowtie Inversion Technique for Real-Time Processing of the GOES-16/-17 SEISS MPS-HI Electron Channels

摘要

The Space Environment In-Situ Suite on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R series of satellites includes a new instrument for measuring radiation belt electrons and protons, the Magnetospheric Particle Sensor-High Energy (MPS-HI). The MPS-HI electron channels cover the energy range 50 keV to 4 MeV. The conversion of raw MPS-HI electron telescope counts to fluxes is based on the so-called bowtie technique. The goal of the bowtie analysis is to calculate for each energy channel an energy/geometric factor pair applicable to a wide range of energy spectra and for which the geometric factor error is minimized. Rather than using idealized analytical spectral functions, we use observed high-resolution spectra from the cross-calibrated Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) Medium Electron Sensor A and High Energy Electron Fluxmeter data set from the period 1990-1991, restricted to 6 L < 8. One thousand randomly selected CRRES spectra are used to perform the bowtie analysis and determine the MPS-HI channel energy/geometric factor characteristics. The results are used to convert the GOES-16/-17 MPS-HI electron counts to fluxes. The same bowtie technique is used to calculate effective energies and geometric factors for the GOES-13/-14 Magnetospheric Electron Detector ME1-ME5 (30-600 keV) electron channels. We compare the fluxes from the various spacecraft (GOES-16/-13, GOES-17/-14, and GOES-16/-17) over periods of several months to determine the applicability and utility of the bowtie analysis. Finally, we compare the GOES-16/-13 fluxes during 22 days of near conjunction. All comparisons show good agreement among the various satellite data sets.