On the use of drift echoes to characterize on-orbit sensor discrepancies

We describe a method for using drift echo signatures in on-orbit data to resolve discrepancies between different measurements of particle flux. The drift period has a well-defined energy dependence, which gives rise to time dispersion of the echoes. The dispersion can then be used to determine the effective energy for one or more channels given each channel's drift period and the known energy for a reference channel. We demonstrate this technique on multiple instruments from the Van Allen Probes mission. Drift echoes are only easily observed at high energies (100skeV to multiple MeV), where several drift periods occur before the observing satellite has moved on or the global magnetic conditions have changed. We describe a first-order correction for spacecraft motion. The drift echo technique has provided a significant clue in resolving substantial flux discrepancies between two instruments measuring fluxes near 2MeV.