March 21, 2025, Friday, 03:00PM (GMT+03.00, Moscow), IKI, Room 200

Abstract:

After a 35-year break and for the first time in this century, two LAERT satellite ionosondes (Ionosfera-M No.1 and No.2 satellites) were launched into orbit to perform vertical ionospheric sounding from the satellite and global ionosphere monitoring. The new instruments differ significantly from previous models of satellite ionosondes in their ability to perform various tasks in 9 different operating modes. Among them, it is worth mentioning the ability to operate in the HF radio spectrometer mode within the operating frequency range of 0.1 – 20 MHz, as well as the measurement of radiation HF spectra before and immediately after the sounding pulse, which adds a relaxation probe mode to the instrument.

An absolute innovation is the use of carbon fiber dipoles as transmitting and receiving antennas, which reduces their moment of inertia for the purpose of three-axis stabilization of the spacecraft.

The first results obtained during the flight testing period of the Ionosfera-M spacecraft No. 1 and No. 2 satellites showed that both instruments fully meet the requirements of the design task. The quality of the obtained ionograms allows the calculation of vertical profiles of electron concentration with high reliability, and a number of the results that will be demonstrated were obtained for the first time.