Low-Latitude Ionosphere/Thermosphere Enhancements in Density Mission (LLITED): Results and Challenges

The Low-Latitude Ionosphere/Thermosphere Enhancements in Density (LLITED) mission, a two 1.5U CubeSat mission to study nighttime ionosphere/thermosphere coupling, was successfully launched in the spring of 2023. While the CubeSats successfully reached orbit, the final orbit differed from the planned orbit. Both LLITED-A and LLITED-B spacecraft completed early orbit check out and commissioning, but due to a solar cell anomaly are operating with a significant reduction in power. This has resulted in a much lower duty cycle for each of the three science payloads: an ionization gauge (MIGSI) to observe neutral density, a planar ion probe (PIP) to observe plasma density, and a GPS radio occultation sensor for observing (CTECS-A) total electron content. The combination of the operating orbit and power budget has required a refocusing of the mission science goals and a highly tailored ConOps. Despite these challenges, LLITED-A/B has provided exciting observations of small-scale density structure evolution, neutral atmospheric variability across the cusp boundary, and neutral and plasma density structure coupling.