This all-in-one orientation unit can sense and provide information with nine degrees of freedom. It can tell where Earth is and how fast Peregrinus is moving in 3D space by measuring gravity; a magnetometer can determine where magnetic north is, and a gyroscope will measure the upper stage’s spin and twist. All this data is compressed to save space and transmitted to the ground via the Iridium satellite network.

“Every 10 seconds we will get a message with 10 seconds worth of data in it, on radiation striking our detector and Earth’s magnetic field,” explains Erik de Schrijver, Science teacher and Peregrinus Project Leader.

“As well as this, we will get rough positioning data provided by the satellite network and of course, we count on using Ariane 6’s positioning data, too. This magnetic data transmission will continue until stopped by the reentry of the upper stage and with it, our experiment. With all this information, we should get an interesting picture of high-energy radiation striking Earth’s magnetic field.”