Solar Energetic Particle Events Detected in the Housekeeping Data of the European Space Agency's Spacecraft Flotilla in the Solar System.

Despite the growing importance of planetary Space Weather forecasting and radiation protection for science and robotic exploration and the need for accurate Space Weather monitoring and predictions, only a limited number of spacecraft have dedicated instrumentation for this purpose. However, every spacecraft (planetary or astronomical) has hundreds of housekeeping sensors distributed across the spacecraft, some of which can be useful to detect radiation hazards produced by solar particle events. In particular, energetic particles that impact detectors and subsystems on a spacecraft can be identified by certain housekeeping sensors, such as the Error Detection and Correction (EDAC) memory counters, and their effects can be assessed. These counters typically have a sudden large increase in a short time in their error counts that generally match the arrival of energetic particles to the spacecraft. We investigate these engineering datasets for scientific purposes and perform a feasibility study of solar energetic particle event detections using EDAC counters from seven European Space Agency Solar System missions: Venus Express, Mars Express, ExoMars‐Trace Gas Orbiter, Rosetta, BepiColombo, Solar Orbiter, and Gaia. Six cases studies, in which the same event was observed by different missions at different locations in the inner Solar System are analyzed. The results of this study show how engineering sensors, for example, EDAC counters, can be used to infer information about the solar particle environment at each spacecraft location. Therefore, we demonstrate the potential of the various EDAC to provide a network of solar particle detections at locations where no scientific observations of this kind are available. Plain Language Summary: Space Weather is the discipline that aims at understanding and predicting the state of the Sun, interplanetary medium and its impact on planetary environments. One source of Space Weather is Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs), which are emitted by the Sun and enhance the radiation and particles that flow in space. Predicting the motion of these particles is important but difficult as we need good satellite coverage of the entire inner Solar System, and only a limited number of spacecraft have the necessary instrumentation. Thanks to the European Space Agency flotilla, that is, Venus Express, Mars Express, ExoMars‐Trace Gas Orbiter, Rosetta, BepiColombo, Solar Orbiter, and Gaia, we performed a feasibility study of the detection of SEP events using engineering sensors in the main body of the spacecraft that were originally placed there to monitor its health during the mission. We explored how much scientific information we can get from these engineering sensors, such as the timing and duration of an SEP impacting the spacecraft, or the minimum energy of those particles to trigger a detection. The results of this study have the potential of providing a good network of solar particle detections at locations where no scientific observations are available. Key Points: Space weather detections using housekeeping datasets on European Space Agency spacecraftSome engineering datasets on spacecraft have the potential to be used for scienceSame Space Weather events detected with housekeeping data at widely‐spaced locations in the Solar System [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]