Daily e-mail Jan 15th 2013

Good Morning 

Payloads up: 

I've included the maps of where the satellites are today at the end of the e-mail.

SANAE IV: 1K, 1N, 1O

Halley 6: 1D, 1I, 1G

Payloads ready for flight:

SANAE IV: The guys tried to launch this afternoon as the next 5 days are not looking too good for ground weather conditions. Hopefully the winds will have died down!  

Halley 6: Possible launch on either Wed. or Thursday of this week. 

Payloads coming down:

1J came down yesterday and we are now seeing if we can use it as a ground magnetometer. 

1K is getting close to McMurdo so we are watching it closely incase it needs to be cut down. 

Conjunctions: 

I have attached maps of the conjunctions which have taken place thus far at the end of the e-mail. 

Jan 12th 2013

Sat. A 0220 UT - 1005 UT

Sat. B 0150 UT - 0920 UT

Jan 13 2013

Sat. A 0530 UT - 1315 UT

Sat. B 0500 UT - 1250 UT

Jan 14 2013

Sat. A 0000 UT - 0650 UT

Sat. A 0840 UT - 1620 UT

Sat. B 0000 UT - 0650 UT

Sat. B 0820 UT - 1600 UT

Jan 15 2013

Sat. A 0220 UT - 1000 UT

Sat. B 0200 UT - 0935 UT

Jan 16 2013

Sat. A 0530 UT - 1310 UT

Sat. B 0530 UT - 1310 UT

GOES Electron Flux:

GOES 15 and 13 are starting to see a huge rise in the flux of >= 2 MeV particles  which we haven't seen before during the BARREL mission. Perhaps if we can get another small storm, we'll see some relativistic flux! The lower energy >= 0.8 MeV particles have been increasing since the 13th of Jan. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com

Solar wind speed is 455.7 km/s

Solar proton density 2.3 cm^(-3)

128 sunspots are now visible. NOAA decreased the likelihood of a M class flare to 60% and a 5% chance of an X class flare. The evil twins are now just half way across the sun so still a couple of days away until they may become geo-effective. 

Kp is quiet kp = 1 with a 24 max of kp = 2

Bz = 1.8 nT south

Btotal = 3.7 nT 

There are no large coronal holes on the sun. 

From Kyoto:

AE: Have been active with <500 nT activity since about 07:45 UT on the 15th of Jan. 

Dst: We reached -31nT today at noon. However this was the exact same time that we saw the -35nT and I'm wondering if this may be partially due to the increased solar wind leading to a worse estimation of the subtraction of the quiet time component of the Dst. 

Talk to you all soon