Technical Article

LUCI onboard Lagrange, the next generation of EUV space weather monitoring

¹ Royal Observatory of Belgium, Ringlaan -3- Av. Circulaire, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
² Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 300, Boulder, CO 80302, USA
³ Centre Spatial de Liège, Université de Liège, Av. du Pré-Aily B29, 4031 Angleur, Belgium
⁴ Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center, 7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland
⁵ Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
⁶ Lebedev Physical Institute, Leninskii prospekt, 53, 119991 Moscow, Russia
⁷ Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, OX11 0QX Oxfordshire, UK

^* Corresponding author: mwest@boulder.swri.edu; m_sgwest@yahoo.co.uk

Received: 31 May 2020
Accepted: 8 September 2020

Abstract

Lagrange eUv Coronal Imager (LUCI) is a solar imager in the Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) that is being developed as part of the Lagrange mission, a mission designed to be positioned at the L5 Lagrangian point to monitor space weather from its source on the Sun, through the heliosphere, to the Earth. LUCI will use an off-axis two mirror design equipped with an EUV enhanced active pixel sensor. This type of detector has advantages that promise to be very beneficial for monitoring the source of space weather in the EUV. LUCI will also have a novel off-axis wide field-of-view, designed to observe the solar disk, the lower corona, and the extended solar atmosphere close to the Sun–Earth line. LUCI will provide solar coronal images at a 2–3 min cadence in a pass-band centred on 19.5. Observations made through this pass-band allow for the detection and monitoring of semi-static coronal structures such as coronal holes, prominences, and active regions; as well as transient phenomena such as solar flares, limb coronal mass ejections (CMEs), EUV waves, and coronal dimmings. The LUCI data will complement EUV solar observations provided by instruments located along the Sun–Earth line such as PROBA2-SWAP, SUVI-GOES and SDO-AIA, as well as provide unique observations to improve space weather forecasts. Together with a suite of other remote-sensing and in-situ instruments onboard Lagrange, LUCI will provide science quality operational observations for space weather monitoring.