Publications related to the GRACE Missions (no abstracts)

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Orbital Decay of the Three SNIPE CubeSats During the Super Geomagnetic Storm in May 2024

Song, Hosub, Keum, Ki–Hwan, Park, Jaeheung, Yang, Tae–Yong, Sohn, Jongdae, Song, Youngbum, Zheng, Yihua, Lee, Dae–Hee, and Lee, Jaejin, 2026. Orbital Decay of the Three SNIPE CubeSats During the Super Geomagnetic Storm in May 2024. Space Weather, 24(8):e2026SW005089, doi:10.1029/2026SW005089.

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@ARTICLE{2026SpWea..2405089S,
       author = {{Song}, Hosub and {Keum}, Ki--Hwan and {Park}, Jaeheung and {Yang}, Tae--Yong and {Sohn}, Jongdae and {Song}, Youngbum and {Zheng}, Yihua and {Lee}, Dae--Hee and {Lee}, Jaejin},
        title = "{Orbital Decay of the Three SNIPE CubeSats During the Super Geomagnetic Storm in May 2024}",
      journal = {Space Weather},
     keywords = {CubeSat, TLE, satellite drag, SNIPE},
         year = 2026,
        month = aug,
       volume = {24},
       number = {8},
          eid = {e2026SW005089},
        pages = {e2026SW005089},
     abstract = "{The Mother's Day (Gannon) geomagnetic superstorm of May 2024 produced
        extreme thermospheric heating and expansion, resulting in
        enhanced atmospheric drag on low Earth orbiting (LEO)
        satellites. We investigate storm--time thermospheric drag and
        density variability using three satellites of the Small--scale
        magNetospheric and Ionospheric Plasma Experiment (SNIPE) 6U
        CubeSat constellation, complemented by density measurements from
        Swarm, GRACE--FO, and MSIS 2.1. Despite operating at nearly
        identical orbits, SNIPE--B and SNIPE--D experienced
        significantly different altitude losses during the storm,
        attributed to differences in effective along--track cross--
        sectional area arising from different attitude control modes---
        demonstrating that spacecraft configuration strongly influences
        drag even for identical CubeSat platforms. SNIPE--B's drag--
        derived density shows strong correlation with GRACE--FO
        measurements, whereas MSIS 2.1 underestimates density near storm
        peaks. However, the inter--altitude drag ratio between SNIPE--A
        and SNIPE--B agrees qualitatively with MSIS 2.1 predictions,
        suggesting the model captures thermospheric vertical structure
        under extreme force. These results demonstrate that publicly
        available two--line element data, when combined with attitude
        information, provide a cost--effective method for monitoring
        storm--time thermospheric density. Our findings highlight the
        importance of attitude information in drag analyses and suggest
        that CubeSat constellations offer significant potential for
        thermospheric modeling and space weather monitoring.}",
          doi = {10.1029/2026SW005089},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026SpWea..2405089S},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

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