A Technical Overview on Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) Suite for Solar Orbiter
Abstract
Solar Orbiter is ESA's next solar and heliospheric mission which is planned to be launched in February 2020. The Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) on board on Solar Orbiter will provide key measurements for the Solar Orbiter science objectives. The EPD suite consists of four sensors: STEP, EPT, HET and SIS, which are connected to an Instrument Control Unit (ICU).
STEP (Supra-Thermal Electrons and Protons) unit is designed to measure the solar particle fluxes following the Sun's magnetic field at energies from about 2keV up to 100keV. It uses segmented silicon detectors with ultra-thin entrance windows to provide both, sensitivity for low-energy particles, and angular resolution. EPT (Electron and Proton Telescope) uses the magnet/foil-technique and is designed to cleanly separate and measure electrons in the energy range from 20 - 400 keV and protons from 20 - 7000 keV and will cover the gap with some overlap between suprathermal electrons measured by STEP and high energy electrons measured by HET. HET (High Energy Telescope) helps to understand the sources, acceleration mechanisms and transport processes of high energetic particles. HET will measure electrons from 300 keV up to about 30 MeV, protons from 10 - 100MeV, and heavy ions from ~20 to 500 MeV/nuc. HET is designed with Si tracking detectors and a BGO crystal for stopping detector. SIS (SupraThermal Ion Spectrograph) identifies particles by time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry and provides observations from Helium to Iron in an energy range from ~100 keV/nuc up to 10 MeV/nuc. SIS is based on the ACE/ULEIS design, which identifies particle species and energy via a time-of flight vs energy technique. This poster includes the basic design principles for each of the EPD suite sensors.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMSH21D3302R
- Keywords:
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- 7594 Instruments and techniques;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7599 General or miscellaneous;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7894 Instruments and techniques;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS;
- 7899 General or miscellaneous;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS