CAPIBARA's Cosmic Ray Mission

Building an Instrument for On-Orbit Cosmic Ray Detection

Cosmic Ray Detection

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles-mostly protons and alpha particles-that constantly bombard Earth from deep space. Though invisible to the naked eye, they carry vital clues about the most energetic and violent phenomena in the cosmos.

CAPIBARA's Cosmic Ray mission is an instrument integrated into the OBA FARADAY CubeSat by OBA Space. The detector is designed to detect particles from low Earth orbit and is a 100% student-led initiative.

Detectors

The instrument will be capable of detecting protons and alpha particles using 2 detectors:

  • Time-of-Flight Detector
  • Charge Detector (potentially)
Each detector provides different information about a cosmic ray particle, allowing for more research and characterization of their composition and behavior.

Orbital Parameters

    Orbit: LEO/SSO Altitude: ~500km Inclination: 50-60ยบ
These are preliminary parameters and are ultimately subject to decisions by OBA FARADAY and the Miura 5 Spark Program teams.
Ilustration of solar wind

Research Highlight: Solar Cosmic Rays

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Why Does It Matter?

Cosmic rays could help us understand the origins of supernovae, black holes, and even dark matter. With this mission, we take a leap forward in space weather forecasting, particle astrophysics, and science education-all while showing what students are capable of in real space research.

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Status of PLD Space's SPARK Program

We were recently notified by our payload hosters (OBA FARADAY Team) that the SPARK program is currently in hold by PLD Space, Center for technological development and innovation (CDTI, acronym in Spanish) and Spanisch Space Agency (AEE, acronym in Spanish). Awaiting for a potential interests conflict resolution we, together with our partners, are still working on the development of our instruments. Nevertheless, we have reduced the pace of our progress and will wait for new notifications before kicking off the funding campaign and manufacturing of the instrument.