Tunde-m apparatus of the SPF unit of the Vega program

The apparatus is designed to detect ions accelerated in the vicinity of Halley's comet, to measure their energy, and to determine their flux at different points of the environment of the comet. The system comprises two charged particle telescopes, each consisting of two semiconductor detectors and an anticoincidence scintillation counter. To avoid contamination from electrons with energies lower than 500 keV, a deflecting magnet is applied to each telescope. The subsystems for processing the signals, which have multichannel analyzers and power supply units, operate independently. Control of the digital part is exercised by a microprocessor, which acquires, reduces, and transfers data and periodically checks the operation of the instrument. To increase reliability at critical places, threefold redundancy and majority logic are applied.