Specification, Design, and Calibration of the Space Weather Suite of Instruments on the NOAA GOES-R Program Spacecraft

Abstract

The next generation of GOES satellites will include a new suite of charged particle instruments to support the latest National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) space weather specification and prediction requirements. The suite represents a major improvement in the operational measurement of the space environment in geosynchronous orbit, covering a wider range of particle types, energies, and arrival directions than with the previous GOES instruments. Electrons are covered over an energy range of 30 eV to 10 MeV, protons 30 eV to 500 MeV and heavy ions from 10 to 200 MeV/nucleon, all measured over many orders of magnitude in flux. Meeting the latest NOAA requirements necessitates addition of two new instruments not previously flown on GOES - a suprathermal plasma analyzer and a heavy ion cosmic ray detector. The new medium and high-energy electron and proton instruments have been designed to make accurate measurements over a much wider dynamic flux range than the previous GOES instruments. In this paper, we describe the design and novel features of the instruments and discuss their calibration program in terms of accuracy of on-orbit measurements.