GOES-R Space Environment In-Situ Suite: instruments overview, calibration results, and data processing algorithms, and expected on-orbit performance

The space weather instruments (Space Environment In-Situ Suite – SEISS) on the soon to be launched, NOAA GOES-R series spacecraft offer significant space weather measurement performance advances over the previous GOES N-P series instruments. The specifications require that the instruments ensure proper operation under the most stressful high flux conditions corresponding to the largest solar particle event expected during the program, while maintaining high sensitivity at low flux levels. Since the performance of remote sensing instruments is sensitive to local space weather conditions, the SEISS data will be of be of use to a broad community of users. The SEISS suite comprises five individual sensors and a data processing unit: Magnetospheric Particle Sensor-Low (0.03–30 keV electrons and ions), Magnetospheric Particle Sensor-High (0.05–4 MeV electrons, 0.08–12 MeV protons), two Solar And Galactic Proton Sensors (1 to >500 MeV protons), and the Energetic Heavy ion Sensor (10-200 MeV for H, H to Fe with single element resolution). We present comparisons between the enhanced GOES-R instruments and the current GOES space weather measurement capabilities. We provide an overview of the sensor configurations and performance. Results of extensive sensor modeling with GEANT, FLUKA and SIMION are compared with calibration data measured over nearly the entire energy range of the instruments. Combination of the calibration results and model are used to calculate the geometric factors of the various energy channels. The calibrated geometric factors and typical and extreme space weather environments are used to calculate the expected on-orbit performance.