Solar Wind—Magnetosphere Coupling During Radial Interplanetary Magnetic Field Conditions: Simultaneous Multi-Point Observations

S. Toledo-Redondo and J. Fornieles acknowledge support of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of Spain (grant FIS2017-90102-R) and of Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant PID2020-112805GA-I00). Research at IRAP was supported by CNRS, CNES, and the University of Toulouse. We acknowledge support of the ISSI teams MMS and Cluster observations of magnetic reconnection and Cold plasma of ionospheric in the Earth's magnetosphere, and of the ESAC Science faculty.In-situ spacecraft missions are powerful assets to study processes that occur in space plasmas. One of their main limitations, however, is extrapolating such local measurements to the global scales of the system. To overcome this problem at least partially, multi-point measurements can be used. There are several multi-spacecraft missions currently operating in the Earth's magnetosphere, and the simultaneous use of the data collected by them provides new insights into the large-scale properties and evolution of magnetospheric plasma processes. In this work, we focus on studying the Earth's magnetopause (MP) using a conjunction between the Magnetospheric Multiscale and Cluster fleets, when both missions skimmed the MP for several hours at distant locations during radial interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions. The observed MP positions as a function of the evolving solar wind conditions are compared to model predictions of the MP. We observe an inflation of the magnetosphere (similar to 0.7 R-E), consistent with magnetosheath pressure decrease during radial IMF conditions, which is less pronounced on the flank (<0.2 R-E). There is observational evidence of magnetic reconnection in the subsolar region for the whole encounter, and in the dusk flank for the last portion of the encounter, suggesting that reconnection was extending more than 15 R-E. However, reconnection jets were not always observed, suggesting that reconnection was patchy, intermittent or both. Shear flows reduce the reconnection rate up to similar to 30% in the dusk flank according to predictions, and the plasma beta enhancement in the magnetosheath during radial IMF favors reconnection suppression by the diamagnetic drift.Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of Spain FIS2017-90102-RSpanish Government PID2020-112805GA-I00Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)European CommissionCentre National D'etudes SpatialesUniversity of ToulouseESAC Science facult

High order algorithms for the management of uncertainties with applications in space situational awareness

Space situational awareness program, for both NEO and debris segments, have to face the challenging problem of accurately managing uncertainties in highly nonlinear dynamical environments. The uncertainties affect all the main phases necessary for the successful realization of the program; i.e., orbital determination, ephemeris prediction, collision probability computation, and collision avoidancemaneuver planning and execution. Since the amount of data that must be processed is huge, efficient methods for the management of uncertainties are required. Differential algebraic (DA) techniques can represent a valuable tool to address this tasks. Differential algebra supplies the tools to compute the derivatives of functions within a computer environment. This technique allows for the efficient computation of high-order expansions of the flow of ordinary differential equations (with respect to initial conditions and/or model parameters) and the approximation of the solution manifold of implicit equations in Taylor series. These two features constitute the building blocks of a set new algorithms for the nonlinear and efficient management of uncertainties. Applications to 1) angles-only preliminary orbit determination 2) propagation of orbital dynamics 3) nonlinear filtering 4) space conjunction prediction 5) robust optimal control are presented to prove the efficiency of DA based algorithms

Multispacecraft observations and modeling of the 22/23 June 2015 geomagnetic storm

The magnetic storm of 22–23 June 2015 was one of the largest in the current solar cycle. We present in situ observations from the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) and the Van Allen Probes (VAP) in the magnetotail, field‐aligned currents from AMPERE (Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response), and ionospheric flow data from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Our real‐time space weather alert system sent out a “red alert,” correctly predicting Kp indices greater than 8. We show strong outflow of ionospheric oxygen, dipolarizations in the MMS magnetometer data, and dropouts in the particle fluxes seen by the MMS Fast Plasma Instrument suite. At ionospheric altitudes, the AMPERE data show highly variable currents exceeding 20 MA. We present numerical simulations with the Block Adaptive Tree‐Solarwind ‐ Roe ‐ Upwind Scheme (BATS‐R‐US) global magnetohydrodynamic model linked with the Rice Convection Model. The model predicted the magnitude of the dipolarizations, and varying polar cap convection patterns, which were confirmed by DMSP measurements.Key PointsMHD models can reproduce well the dipolarizations seen at MMS and VAP. Space weather forecasting can predict Kp variations within 0.5 stepBeams of O+ flowing downstream appear to cross the separatrix and become a second energized population of the tail plasma sheetMHD models successfully reproduced the polar cap convection patterns and cross‐polar cap potential drops for a range of IMF conditionsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134114/1/grl54522_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134114/2/grl54522-sup-0002-FigureS1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134114/3/grl54522.pd

Two-Dimensional Velocity of the Magnetic Structure Observed on July 11, 2017 by the Magnetospheric Multiscale Spacecraft

In order to determine particle velocities and electric field in the frame of the magnetic structure, one first needs to determine the velocity of the magnetic structure in the frame of the spacecraft observations. Here, we demonstrate two methods to determine a two-dimensional magnetic structure velocity for the magnetic reconnection event observed in the magnetotail by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft on July 11, 2017, Spatio-Temporal Difference (STD) and the recently developed polynomial reconstruction method. Both of these methods use the magnetic field measurements; the reconstruction technique also uses the current density measured by the particle instrument. We find rough agreement between the results of our methods and with other velocity determinations previously published. We also explain a number of features of STD and show that the polynomial reconstruction technique is most likely to be valid within a distance of 2 spacecraft spacings from the centroid of the MMS spacecraft. Both of these methods are susceptible to contamination by magnetometer calibration errors