About Us
ELFIN flight units in rear, ground/engineering model unit in foreground.
The Electron Losses and Fields Investigation (ELFIN) twin satellite mission studies space weather using three scientific instruments in a 3U+ CubeSat form factor. ELFIN was successfully launched on September 15, 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, aboard the trusty ULA Delta II launch vehicle. ELFIN is the first satellite mission designed, built, tested, and operated at UCLA, primarily by undergraduate students.
ELFIN will study the key mechanisms responsible for the loss of relativistic electrons from the radiation belts. It’s unique low Earth orbit perspective and specialized sensors will aid in modeling and predicting Earth’s dynamic radiation environment. The satellites will spin like a hammer rotating head over handle every 3 seconds to be able to capture the full range of electron pitch angles. Each spacecraft has two Energetic Particle Detectors, one for Electrons (EPD-E) and one for Ions (EPD-I), as well as a Fluxgate Magnetometer deployed at the end of a 75cm stacer boom. These science instruments were developed by UCLA staff at the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) and the Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences department (EPSS).
Originally only one satellite was funded, until the ELFIN-STAR (Spatio-Temporal Ambiguity Resolution) option was awarded and executed in November 2017, which added an additional identical CubeSat. Having two satellites greatly enhances our measurements of electron scattering behavior by determining the time or spatial dependence of the geophysical magnetospheric mechanisms.
ELFIN is operating in the phase minimum solar activity, and a nominal mission lifetime of six months would allow ELFIN to observe two geomagnetic storms based on the current best predictive models of solar activity. However, in order to allow for further insight into seasonal variations in the magnetosphere, demonstrate the reliability of spacecraft components, and provide a large margin to ensure mission success, ELFIN is designed for a lifetime of many years, projected until 2024.
A subset of the ELFIN operations and development student team, posing with two CubeSat mockups in the Mission Operations Center housed in EPSS. The realtime displays, from right to left, show ELFIN’s current orbital position, our tracking communications antennas, and UHF radio downlink signal from the spacecraft.
The heart of a CubeSat program involves students taking responsibility as subsystem leads, overseeing their team and troubleshooting problems on their own. By honing their skills in a real-life engineering environment and interacting with multiple disciplines to accomplish project goals, this hands-on experience is invaluable for their future careers. As of 2018, over 250 students have passed through the project since its inception in 2009, and ELFINers have formed a powerful alumni network across various technical industries. While UCLA staff have provided instruments on many other satellites in the past, this is the first time an entire spacecraft (including payload) has been built, managed, and operated on the UCLA campus.
Now that ELFIN has launched, the team is currently made up of around 20 UCLA undergraduates leading mission operations and software development, with a few graduate students and staff members serving in mentorship roles. All flight and ground station software was custom written for the specific needs of this mission, with complex commands and data downlinks occurring over up to a dozen satellite passes per day. These students are responsible for monitoring the health of the spacecraft, conducting orbital maneuvers and science data collection to ensure our mission objectives are met.
Many thanks to NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, ELaNa-XVIII, United Launch Alliance, Tyvak and CalPoly SLO for getting us safely into orbit!
ELFIN is funded jointly by the NSF and NASA CubeSat programs and has been a participant in the NS-8 round of AFRL’s University Nanosatellite Program. The ELFIN mission is a collaboration with the Aerospace Corporation.
