AGILE: An innovative instrument concept to identify and characterise solar energetic particles

We describe the prototype of a novel particle telescope, the Advanced enerGetic Ion eLectron tElescope (AGILE), which utilises for the first time in space, full pulse shape discrimination (PSD) to identify energetic ions such as solar energetic particles (SEP), anomalous cosmic rays (ACR), and characterise their spectra for various ion species. The prototype AGILE is a compact, low mass, and low-power particle telescope suitable for CubeSat platforms that enable low-cost multi-point in-situ measurements in geo- and interplanetary space. AGILE employs high heritage solid state detectors, a state-of-art high-speed sampling ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), as well as novel algorithms to characterise SEP to advance the understanding of charged particle energization, loss, and transport throughout the heliosphere. The prototype AGILE has been built and will be the science payload on the GenSat-1 CubeSat. GenSat-1 is manifested to be launched in the autumn of 2025 into a high inclination low earth orbit. AGILE will collect data over the polar regions, i.e., the open field line regions accessed by SEP.