BARREL Daily Status Update: December 27th 2013

Hi all, 

We just had our first launch of the new BARREL Campaign. 2T was launched from Halley at 12:08 UT and reached float altitude at 14:10 UT. EMFISIS has been seeing beautiful chorus waves around apogee so hopefully with today's burst collection we will see some nice activity! Granted the geomagnetic activity is lower today than it was a couple of days ago, so we'll just have to wait and see what mother nature has in store for us. 

We will have our first daily telecom today with the Van Allen Probes team as well as with some CubeSats and other ground based groups. We use these telecoms to coordinate burst data collection (data collection at a higher rate than normal), as well as seeing what events we may have collected and could be of interest for further study. Last year during the campaign we had these meet ups every day, 7 days a week for almost the entire campaign. As we have a payload up now, we will continue to have the daily telecoms until we decide that we can have fewer. No rest for the weary scientist. 

Currently the space weather appears to be quiet low until the new year. There is a coronal hole which should reach us on or around Jan 2nd - 3rd. There are a few sunspots which are currently geo-effective and may be able to produce large flares. However since they have stayed quiet and are not crackling, NOAA thinks the likely hood of them erupting while they are geo-effective is minimal. 

Ground Weather:

SANAE IV: 

Temp.: -7 C

Wind speed: 17.5 knots 

Halley 6: 

Temp.: -3.6 C

Wind speed: 7 knots 

Payloads up: 

SANAE IV: none  

Halley 6:  2T

Payloads coming down:

none 

Collection times for EFW: Maps of these collection times are attached. 

2013-12-27

A: 16:00 - 19:00 (MLTs from 14 - 17)

B: 16:00 - 19:00 (MLTs from 14 - 16.5)

2013-12-28

A: 16:00 - 20:00 (MLTs from 11.5 - 14.5)

B: 16:30 - 20:30 (MLTs from 11 - 15)

2013-12-29

A: 18:50 - 21:50 (MLTs from 11-14)

B: 19:00 - 22:00 (MLTs from 11-13.5)

Halley Bay:

No waves observed at the moment. 

GOES Electron Flux:

The electron flux is returning to normal. 

GOES Proton Flux:

There is a increase in the proton flux for > 10 MeV over the last 12 hours, but it appears to be recovering. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 

Solar wind speed: 300.9 km/s 

Solar proton density: 2.3 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 96  

NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 25% and a 1% chance of an X class flare.  

Kp is quiet 

kp = 0 with a 24 max of kp = 0

Bz = 0.1 nT north

Btotal = 7.5 nT  

There is new coronal hole starting to show up on the Eastern limb of the sun which may be able to reach us on Jan 2 - 3. This coronal hole appears to be more equator ward than the previous one. There are a few sunspots which are showing a beta-gamma magnetic field structure. These are known for producing large flares and CMEs. However as they have stayed quiet and not produced any M-class flares, NOAA is lowering their chance of erupting while they are geo-effective. 

From Kyoto:

AE: quieter than I have ever seen it.

Dst: very quiet. 

Have a good day,

December 27th conjunction period.

December 28th Conjunction period.

December 29th Conjunction period.