Speaker
Description
Wichita State University, in collaboration with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, designed and produced a CubeSat. Its called SNAPPY (Solar Neutrino and Astro-Particle PhYsics). We Launched in May 2026 into a low earth orbit and are taking data over the North and South poles looking for neutrino backgrounds. We are at the stage of having automated daily satellite contacts and data downloads when the spacecraft is over Chile or Iceland. We have many first results including: the rate of neutrino backgrounds in space when in the holes in the earth’s magnetic field over the poles, the spectrum of gamma rays in space that interact with the detector, a galactic gamma ray burst measurement on Sep 3 2026 (GRB 260903A), and a reconstructed energy spectrum of the protons and electrons in space weather. SNAPPY is 5 months into a 2 year mission with possible extensions and will bring further results yet to come.
The SNAPPY (Solar Neutrino and Astro-Particle PhYsics) spacecraft, designed and operated by a collaboration led by Wichita State University, launched in May 2026 into a low earth orbit to take data over the North and South poles. The poles are outside the shielding effect of the Earth magnetic field and allow us to quantify background signals for a future neutrino detector in deep space using a double-pulse detection method. We will describe the SNAPPY spacecraft and its detector, discuss the path from launch to current stable operations, and the primary and secondary mission objectives. We will also show data from space that includes: the rate of neutrino backgrounds in space when in the holes in the earth’s magnetic field, the spectrum of gamma rays in space that interact with the detector, a galactic gamma ray burst measurement on Sep 3, 2026 (GRB 260903A), and a reconstructed energy spectrum of the protons and electrons in space weather. SNAPPY is 5 months into a 2-year mission with possible extensions and will bring further results yet to come.