ELECTRA Mission: Ionospheric TEC Mapping through a 3U CubeSat

ELECTRA - Electron Layer Exploration using CubeSat for TEC Research and Analysis - is a 3U CubeSat mission developed at Politecnico di Torino by the CubeSat student team, in collaboration with the Systems and Technologies for Aerospace Research Laboratory (STAR Lab) and the Navigation Signal Analysis and Simulation (NavSAS) group. The mission directly addresses the growing need for ionospheric monitoring from Low Earth Orbit (LEO), demonstrating how Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based space applications can advance this field. Scheduled for launch in Q2 2027 into a Sun-Synchronous Orbit (500 km), ELECTRA carries two dual-frequency GNSS receivers (L1/L5) to acquire raw observables from multiple constellations, enabling both zenithal Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements and Radio Occultation (RO) observations. By exploiting the satellite's natural orbital decay, the mission will study TEC variations across different altitudes to derive parameters such as the F-layer peak height (hmF2) and maximum electron density (NmF2). The resulting dataset will support the analysis of ionospheric irregularities at low, mid, and high latitudes, including Pre-Reversal Enhancement (PRE), Medium-Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs), and auroral plasma structures. ELECTRA's measurements will be spatially and temporally referenced with high accuracy thanks to POD, improving space weather modeling and GNSS correction algorithms. Supported by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), ELECTRA represents a pilot mission toward an autonomous constellation of CubeSats dedicated to real-time ionospheric monitoring and the enhancement of satellite-based communication and navigation resilience.