ELVES: Electron Losses driven by VLF EmissionS
PI: Ethan Tsai
PM: Emmanuel Masongsong
Co-Is: Anton Artemyev, Leonid Olifer, Xiao-Jia Zhang, Jacob Bortnik
ELVES Team: Emrys Yufei Mao (AE), Katrina Le (ME), Christopher Liu (ME)
SDPI Team: Sijie Peng (EE), Marian Macatula (EE), Tai-yu Chen (CS), Naren Sathishkumar (CS), Clara Yee (EE), et al.
HFLoop Team: Shiyu Xia (EE), Francisco Cardena Beltran (EE), Elias Forey (EE), Ava Asmani (EE), Bennett Ji (ME), Luca de Angelis (ME)
FGM20 Team: Sophie Ye (AE), Mimi Xue (EE), Angela Zhang (CS), Ryan Caron (AE)
SPRINT-3 Team: Leonid Olifer, Stephine Yearley, Jasmine Mah, Debbie Zhou
The ELVES Summer 2025 team.
ELVES heading to the stratosphere with the full moon in the background.
Instrumentation
Software Defined Payload Interface (SDPI)
Winner of the 2024 Techleaps Award, provides power and data to all instruments
UCLA High Frequency Loop (HFLoop)
5x10^-15 nT^2/Hz @ 1-500 kHz
UCLA/APS Fluxgate Magnetometer (FGM)
0.2 nT/sqrt(Hz) @ 1 Hz
2x PNI RM3100 Integrated Magnetometers
15 nT/sqrt(Hz) @ 1 Hz
MediPIX EDU
Integral flux: 0-3500 (cm^2-s-sr)^-1
Energy range: 1 - 200 keV
Time resolution: 0.3 seconds
ELVES’ first fully integrated system test at UCLA.
The printed HFLoop instruments being installed onto the underside of the gondola.
The ELVES team members performing final flight integration checks at Fort Sumner, NM.
ELVES rolling out to the runway.
High Level Science Objective: Determine the effectiveness of VLF emissions in precipitating inner belt electrons in various geomagnetic conditions.
SG1: Obtain the 3D wave‐normal angle distribution and polarization characteristics of VLF transmissions, as measured by the HFLoop, before they escape to magnetosphere.
SG2: Compare the quantitative relationship between measured X‐ray bremsstrahlung fluxes and predicted X‐ray fluxes from energetic electron precipitation driven by scattering via resonant interaction with VLF transmissions.
SG3: Examine correlation of the spatiotemporal evolution of simultaneous VLF wave spectral intensity and X‐ray‐inferred precipitating electron energy spectra along the flight path under differing geomagnetic/ionospheric conditions.
Original plan was to fly out of Burns, Oregon and study VLF emissions from the NLK station in Washington.
Due to funding issues at NASA, it was cancelled pretty late, and we had to move our flight schedule up more than a month to fly out of New Mexico instead.
We ended up flying on September 15th, 2025; exactly 7 years after ELFIN launched.
Balloon flight time: 2025-09-15 14:04 - 22:28
Balloon float time: 2025-09-15 15:54 - 21:56
The ELVES science processing team is currently working to process and archive the data.