SH036-0022
DC/LF electric field and spacecraft potential measurements in the solar wind by RPW/BIAS on Solar Orbiter
Monday, 14 December 2020
Poster
Yuri V Khotyaintsev1, Andris Vaivads2, Daniel Graham1, Niklas J. T. Edberg3, Erik P. G. Johansson1, Anders I Eriksson1, Milan Maksimovic4, Stuart D Bale5, Thomas Chust6, Vladimir Krasnoselskikh7, Matthieu Kretzschmar8, Eric Lorfevre9, Dirk Plettemeier10, Jan Soucek11, Manfred Steller12, Štěpán Štverák13, Pavel Travnicek14, Antonio Vecchio15, Timothy Simon Horbury16, Helen O'Brien16, Virginia Angelini17, Vincent Evans17, Christopher John Owen18, Philippe Louarn19 and Andrei Fedorov19, (1)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (2)School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Space and Plasma Physics, Stockholm, Sweden, (3)Swedish Inst. of Space Phys., Uppsala, Sweden, (4)LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, Meudon, France, (5)University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (6)Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (UMR7648), CNRS/Ecole Polytechnique/UPMC/Univ. Paris Sud/Obs. de Paris, Paris, France, (7)Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace, Orléans Cedex 2, France, (8)CNRS and University of Orléans, LPC2E, Orléans, France, (9)CNES French National Center for Space Studies, Toulouse Cedex 09, France, (10)Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany, (11)Inst. of Atmospheric Physics, Praha 4, Czech Republic, (12)Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, (13)Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, (14)University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, (15)Paris Observatory Meudon, Meudon, France, (16)Imperial College London, Department of Physics, London, SW7, United Kingdom, (17)Imperial College London, Department of Physics, London, United Kingdom, (18)University College London, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Dorking, United Kingdom, (19)IRAP, CNRS, Toulouse, France
Abstract:
The BIAS subsystem is a part of the Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) instrument on the ESA Solar Orbiter mission. It allows sending bias current to each of the three RPW antennas. By setting the appropriate bias current the antenna potential can be shifted closer to the local plasma potential. This allows us to measure the floating potential of the spacecraft, as well as the electric field in the DC/LF frequency range with higher accuracy and lower noise level. Here we present the first results on RPW/BIAS in-flight performance based on the operations during the instrument commissioning and first months of science operations.
