A drone-borne installation for studying the composition of cosmic rays in the range of 1-1000 PeV by registering the reflected Cherenkov light of EAS

Current technical design of the SPHERE project's new detector is presented. The SPHERE project is aimed at primary cosmic ray studies in the 1-1000 PeV energy range using reflected Cherenkov light. The concept of a drone-mounted detector with a photosensitive camera based on silicon photomultipliers is discussed. The combination of the reflected CL registration method with specific data analysis approaches is a unique feature of this project. The developed earlier event-by-event data analysis approach allows to carry out primary particle mass reconstruction and primary cosmic ray mass composition studies with high accuracy. This is achieved through careful analysis of each EAS Cherenkov light lateral distribution function without building any kind of intermediate distributions of any 'typical' characteristics.