In situ calibration of offsetting magnetometer feedback transients on the Cassiope spacecraft

Abstract

We present an in situ calibration process to derive the transient behavior of the offsetting fluxgate magnetometer (MGF) instruments on the Cassiope spacecraft. The dynamic behavior of the MGF changed on orbit following a software update. Characterizing the new instrument dynamics during normal spacecraft operations and then removing the transients was confounded by significant magnetic interference from the reaction wheels used to orient the spacecraft. Special operations were performed where data were taken in a safehold mode, with the reaction wheels stopped, following a single-event upset of the spacecraft bus flight computer after transiting the South Atlantic Anomaly. The slow single-axis rotation of the safehold mode was used to characterize the fluxgate's new feedback dynamics. This characterization process was then adapted for routine operation intervals with slow reaction wheel rates to allow the transient behavior to be characterized over long intervals of data spanning a wide range of temperatures. Subtracting these characterized transients from the flight data improves the instrument's noise floor and allows the instrument to accurately track rapidly changing local fields without loss of measurement fidelity. More generally, this characterization process should apply to other situations where the dynamics of an offsetting instrument must be calibrated in situ.