The Plasma Observatory mission was reformulated urgently between April 1, 2025, and May.
Today, CNES is preparing its letter of commitment to ESA. We want to give full recognition to
the contribution of LIRA by enhancing the scientific value of the BOX-P instrument through its flight software, which will receive input data from the MAG magnetometer, the particle detector, and the i-EPC electron camera, which promises unprecedented data on the electron populations encountered in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Thus, LIRA’s flight software has the potential to enhance the scientific return by offering on-board processing of the various data for scientific products used to study the coupling between fields and particles, thereby answering the two major questions of the PO mission:
SQ1. How are particles energized in space plasmas?
SQ2. What are the processes that dominate energy transport and
coupling between different regions of the Earth’s magnetospheric system?