The energetic Particle Telescope (EPT) concept and performances

The forecast of energetic particle fluxes on time scales of hours to weeks, at a given position in space, can be achieved on the basis of experimentally determined particle lifetimes and real-time measurements of contamination-free spectra. Such elaborated measurements can be provided by the Energetic Particle Telescope (EPT) without any further post-processing. This instrument directly acquires energy spectra of electrons (0.2 – 10 MeV), protons (4 – 300 MeV), α-particles (16 – 1000 MeV) and heavier ions (up to 300 MeV/nucleon). The EPT was developed at the Center for Space Radiations – UCL-Belgium. This paper contains a brief description of the EPT concept and the definition of channels along with a more detailed presentation of the general performances based on the intrinsic detection efficiency functions and the validation test results from an Engineering Model. The EPT capabilities for space-weather related applications are highlighted by an example of electron flux forecast.