Monitoring the South Atlantic Anomaly with Photometers in Low Earth Orbit

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is a region where the Earth's inner radiation belt dips down and bathes low earth orbit satellites with energetic charged particles causing problems for satellite operations. We will describe data from UV spectrographic imagers that continue to take data through several daily SAA passages. Using Spectrographic information, we are able to separate, study, and remove the counts due to energetic particles. We have made a model of the SAA at Defense Meteorological Satellite Program altitudes, and using the model, we are able to monitor the intensity of the SAA over time. The particle flux intensity shows yearly and solar cycle variations. In this talk we will describe the techniques, the model, and show results of our study.