Tesseract – a high-stability, low-noise fluxgate sensor designed for constellation applications

• Published in: Geoscientific instrumentation, methods and data systems methods and data systems, 2022-08, Vol.11 (2), p.307-321
• Main Authors: Greene, Kenton, Hansen, Christian, Narod, B. Barry, Dvorsky, Richard, Miles, David M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Calibration; Coils (windings); Cores; Design; Design and construction; Dry ice; Feedback; Fluxgate magnetometers; Homogeneity; Magnetic field; Magnetic fields; Magnetization; Magnetometers; Noise; Orthogonality; Satellite constellations; Satellites; Sensors; Sounding rockets; Space plasmas; Stability; Technological planning; Technology application; Temperature; Thermal stability; Three axis; Tracers
• ISSN: 2193-0864; 2193-0856; 2193-0864
• DOI: 10.5194/gi-11-307-2022

Accurate high-precision magnetic field measurements are a significant challenge for many applications, including constellation missions studying space plasmas. Instrument stability and orthogonality are essential to enable meaningful comparison between disparate satellites in a constellation without extensive cross-calibration efforts. Here we describe the design and characterization of Tesseract – a fluxgate magnetometer sensor designed for low-noise, high-stability constellation applications. Tesseract's design takes advantage of recent developments in the manufacturing of custom low-noise fluxgate cores. Six of these custom racetrack fluxgate cores are securely and compactly mounted within a single solid three-axis symmetric base. Tesseract's feedback windings are configured as a four-square Merritt coil to create a large homogenous magnetic null inside the sensor where the fluxgate cores are held in a near-zero field, regardless of the ambient magnetic field, to improve the reliability of the core magnetization cycle. A Biot–Savart simulation is used to optimize the homogeneity of the field generated by the feedback Merritt coils and was verified experimentally to be homogeneous within 0.42 % along the racetrack cores' axes. The thermal stability of the sensor's feedback windings is measured using an insulated container filled with dry ice inside a coil system. The sensitivity over temperature of the feedback windings is found to be between 13 and 17 ppm ∘C−1. The sensor's three axes maintain orthogonality to within at most 0.015∘ over a temperature range of −45 to 20 ∘C. Tesseract's cores achieve a magnetic noise floor of 5 pT √Hz−1 at 1 Hz. Tesseract will be flight demonstrated on the ACES-II sounding rockets, currently scheduled to launch in late 2022 and again aboard the TRACERS satellite mission as part of the MAGIC technology demonstration which is currently scheduled to launch in 2023.