RELEC mission: Relativistic electron precipitation and TLE study on-board small spacecraft

Abstract The main goal of the Vernov mission is the study of magnetospheric relativistic electron precipitation and its possible influence on the upper atmosphere as well as the observation of Transient Luminous Events (TLE) and Terrestrial Gamma Flashes (TGF) across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The RELEC ( R elativistic Elec trons) instrument complex onboard the Vernov spacecraft includes two identical X- and gamma-ray detectors of high temporal resolution and sensitivity (DRGE-1 and DRGE-2), three axis position detectors for high-energy electrons and protons (DRGE-3), a UV TLE imager (MTEL), a UV detector (DUV), a low frequency analyser (LFA), a radio frequency analyser (RFA), and AN electronics module responsible for control and data collection (BE). The RELEC mission conducts the following experiments: – simultaneous observations of high-energy electron and proton fluxes (within the energy range of ∼0.1–10.0 MeV) and low-frequency (∼0.1–10 kHz) electromagnetic wave field intensity variations with high temporal resolution (∼1 ms); – fine time structure (∼1 μs) measurements of transient atmospheric events in UV, X- and gamma rays with an optical imaging capability with a resolution of ∼1 km in wide field of view (FOV); – measurements of electron flux pitch-angle distributions in dynamical ranges from ∼0.1 up to 10 5 part/cm 2 /s; – monitoring of charged and neutral background particles in different areas of near-Earth space .