A multi-spacecraft synthesis of relativistic electrons in the inner magnetosphere using LANL, GOES, GPS, SAMPLEX, HEO and POLAR Original Research Article

One of the Brussels Radiation Belt Workshop recommendations was the establishment of a near-real-time data driven model of the inner magnetospheric energetic particle population (L < 8). Although the “ideal” missions and data sets for such a model do not exist at present, more spacecraft than ever before are currently sampling the inner magnetosphere. We attempt here in a case study of the January 10, 1997 magnetic cloud event to construct such a model with the energetic electron data available from 5 geosynchronous and 5 elliptically orbiting satellites. We examine the constraints and difficulties of putting together a large number of datasets which are measured near-simultaneously at very different locations in the inner magnetosphere. First results indicate that we can achieve a time resolution of about 3 hours for a given “snapshot” of the inner magnetosphere, and that large azimuthal asymmetries of the energetic electron population can be observed during large storms.