A STRATOSPHERIC PROBE CAPABLE OF COLLECTING DATA ABOUT THE PHENOMENON OF RELATIVISTIC RUNAWAY ELECTRON AVALANCHES.

In planetary atmospheres runaway electron avalanches could happen due to large scale electric fields, which can accelerate fast electrons to energies about 0,1 - 10 MeV. Nowadays this phenomenon is not fully understood.

At this moment most of the data is collecting using spacecrafts in low orbits. However, breakdown can also occur at altitudes of less than 30 km, in this case most of the radiation is scattered without reaching the recording devices in high orbits. The formation of charged particles in the atmosphere can affect the results of other experiments. It is important to have the most proper model of this phenomenon.

The purpose of our work is to create a stratospheric CubeSat format probe capable of collecting data about these events at an altitude of ~ 30 km. The essence of the experiment is to observe changes in the fluxes of both high - energy electrons and radiation in the optical range, as well as an analysis of possible correlations of the measured parameters.

During the creation of the probe, we selected the necessary hardware base of the device. To collect statistics we used a detector, consisting of a thick polystyrene scintillation counter, wrapped with a mylar and connected to two SiPM SensL MicroSB-30035-X13. ADC AD-7768-1, which is located on the motherboard, will be used to digitize the data. We chose SoC AM3358 as the central processor. For the development we have used SBC Beaglebone Black based on this chip. Temperature readings are taken from several DS18S20 + semiconductor sensors. LPS331AP will be used as pressure sensor. LSM9DS0 is used to collect acceleration and rotation data during flight.

In the course of our work we have developed a concept of the probe and created a prototype.