Automated pre-processing of body-mounted magnetometer data from constellations of low earth orbit satellites for derivation of birkeland current signatures

1. A method of mapping magnetic activity for a current linking a planet's space environment to an ionosphere of the planet, comprising:

obtaining magnetic field measurements of the current from a plurality of satellites orbiting the planet;

determining a residual magnetic field from the obtained magnetic field measurements; and

arranging the determined residual magnetic field to create a time series for a selected location of a planet-centered coordinate system that maps the magnetic activity.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the planet is Earth and the plurality of satellites are low Earth orbit satellites having polar orbits.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the residual magnetic field comprises determining a difference between the obtained magnetic field measurement and a planetary magnetic field model.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the residual magnetic field further comprises rotating a model of the planet's magnetic field into a reference frame of at least one of the plurality of satellites.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising filtering attitude data associated with the residual magnetic field at a filter frequency selected to eliminate attitude noise.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

(i) applying orientation, gain and offset corrections to obtained magnetic field measurements at at least one satellite;

(ii) transforming a planetary magnetic field model into a body frame of reference of the at least one satellite and subtracting the transformed planetary magnetic field model from the obtained magnetic field measurements to obtain a magnetic residual vector in the body frame of reference of the at least one satellite; and

(iii) transforming the magnetic residual vector into a frame of reference of the planet.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

(i) evaluating a quality factor for the plurality of residual magnetic fields;

(ii) removing a residual magnetic field for a selected slot when the quality factor of the residual magnetic field meets a selected quality threshold; and

(iii) replacing the removed residual magnetic field with a generated residual magnetic field,

wherein the generated residual magnetic field is generated from at least one of:

(i) a residual magnetic field from a satellite in an adjacent slot ahead of the selected slot along the orbital path; and

(ii) (ii) a residual magnetic field from a satellite in a slot behind the selected slot along the orbital path.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining an ionospheric disturbance from the mapped magnetic activity.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining the current linking the planet's space environment to the ionosphere of the planet using the created time series of the residual magnetic field for a selected location of the planetary-centered coordinate system.

10. A system for mapping magnetic activity in an upper atmosphere of a planetary object, comprising:

a plurality of magnetometers configured to orbit the planetary object, wherein at least one magnetometer of the plurality of magnetometers is configured to measure a magnetic field of the planetary object along an orbital path of the at least one magnetometer; and

a processor configured to:

receive the magnetic field measurement from the at least one magnetometer, determine a residual magnetic field over a plurality of time segments for the magnetometer from the magnetic field measurement, and

arrange the plurality of residual magnetic fields to obtain a time series of residual magnetic field data for a selected location of the planetary object to map the magnetic activity.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the planet is Earth and the plurality of magnetometers are located on a plurality of low Earth orbit satellites.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to determine the residual magnetic field from a difference between the obtained magnetic field measurement and a magnetic field model of the planetary object.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the processor is further configured to rotate the magnetic field model of the planetary object into a reference frame of the magnetometer.

14. The system of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to filter attitude data of at least one of the plurality of magnetometers and select a filter to apply to the attitude data to reduce noise.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to:

(i) evaluate a quality factor for the plurality of residual magnetic fields;

(ii) remove a residual magnetic field for a selected slot when the quality factor for the residual magnetic field meets a selected quality threshold; and

(iii) replace the removed residual magnetic field with a generated residual magnetic field.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the processor is further configured to replace the removed residual magnetic field using at least one of: (i) a residual magnetic field from a satellite in an adjacent slot ahead of the selected slot along the orbital path; and (ii) a residual magnetic field from a satellite in a slot behind the selected slot along the orbital path.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to determine an atmospheric event from the determined magnetic activity.

18. The system of claim 10 , further comprising an interface enabling an operator to determine an action using the mapped magnetic activity.

19. The method of claim 10 , wherein the planet is Earth and the processor is further configured to determine a current linking an Earth-space environment to the atmosphere of the Earth using the created time series of the residual magnetic field for a selected location in an Earth-centered coordinate system.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium product having instructions stored therein which when accessed by a processor enable the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving magnetic field measurements obtained from a plurality of satellites orbiting the Earth in at least one orbital plane;

determining a residual magnetic field from the obtained magnetic field measurements;

arranging the determined residual magnetic field to create a record of residual magnetic fields over the at least one orbital plane; and

determining at least one map of magnetic activity in an atmosphere of the Earth using the record of residual magnetic fields over the at least one orbital plane.