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The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) of the European Space Agency (ESA) will be the first low-frequency gravitational-wave observatory orbiting the Sun at 1 AU. The LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission, aiming at testing the instruments to be located on board the LISA spacecraft (S/C), hosted, among the others, fluxgate magnetometers and a particle detector as parts of a diagnostics subsystem. These instruments allowed us to estimate the magnetic and Coulomb spurious forces acting on the test masses that constitute the mirrors of the interferometer. With these instruments, we also had the possibility to study the galactic cosmic-ray short term-term variations as a function of the particle energy and the associated interplanetary disturbances. Platform magnetometers and particle detectors will also be placed on board each LISA S/C. This work reports on an empirical method that allowed us to disentangle the interplanetary and onboard-generated components of the magnetic field by using the LPF magnetometer measurements. Moreover, we estimate the number and fluence of solar energetic particle events expected to be observed with the ESA Next Generation Radiation Monitor during the mission lifetime. An additional cosmic-ray detector, similar to that designed for LPF, in combination with magnetometers, would permit to observe the evolution of recurrent and non-recurrent galactic cosmic-ray variations and associated increases of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field at the transit of high-speed solar wind streams and interplanetary counterparts of coronal mass ejections. The diagnostics subsystem of LISA makes this mission also a natural multi-point observatory for space weather science investigations.

Context. Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar particles with energies greater than tens of MeV penetrate spacecraft and instruments hosted aboard space missions. The Solar Orbiter Metis coronagraph is aimed at observing the solar corona in both visible (VL) and ultraviolet (UV) light. Particle tracks are observed in the Metis images of the corona. An algorithm has been implemented in the Metis processing electronics to detect the VL image pixels crossed by cosmic rays. This algorithm was initially enabled for the VL instrument only, since the process of separating the particle tracks in the UV images has proven to be very challenging. Aims. We study the impact of the overall bulk of particles of galactic and solar origin on the Metis coronagraph images. We discuss the effects of the increasing solar activity after the Solar Orbiter mission launch on the secondary particle production in the spacecraft. Methods. We compared Monte Carlo simulations of GCRs crossing or interacting in the Metis VL CMOS sensor to observations gathered in 2020 and 2022. We also evaluated the impact of solar energetic particle events of different intensities on the Metis images. Results. The study of the role of abundant and rare cosmic rays in firing pixels in the Metis VL images of the corona allows us to estimate the efficiency of the algorithm applied for cosmic-ray track removal from the images and to demonstrate that the instrument performance had remained unchanged during the first two years of the Solar Orbiter operations. The outcome of this work can be used to estimate the Solar Orbiter instrument's deep charging and the order of magnitude for energetic particles crossing the images of Metis and other instruments such as STIX and EUI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) and its precursor mission LISA Pathfinder (LISA-PF) will carry particle monitors for noise diagnostics. It was proposed to build and place radiation detectors on board the ASTROD missions as well.We present here a study of the solar energetic particle (SEP) events that the LISA-PF radiationmonitors are able to detect above the galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) background predicted at the time of the mission data taking in 2015. In order to optimize the correlation between radiation monitor measurements and gravitational sensor test-mass charging, the energy threshold for particles traversing both detectors should be approximately the same. In LISA-PF, the radiation monitor particle energy cut-off was conservatively set at 75 MeV per nucleon (MeV/n) for protons and ion normal incidence, while the minimum energy of the same particles reaching the test masses is 100 MeV/n. We find that SEP events detectable on LISA-PF are characterized by peak fluxes and fluences at energies>75 MeV/n larger than about 45%, on average, with respect to those at energies >100 MeV/n.We conclude that for an accurate correlation between radiation monitor count rates and test-mass charging, it is mandatory to benefit from absolute flux measurements of both galactic and high-energy solar particles provided by experiments carrying magnetic spectrometers in space at the time of LISA-PF (PAMELA, AMS). On the other hand, the role of the radiation detectors on board LISA-PF is crucial allowing for SEP event onset and dynamics monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]