11:15 AM - 11:30 AM
[PCG17-11] Ion and Neutral Energy Analyzer (INEA)
Keywords:Planetary exosphere, Mass and energy spectrometry, atmospheric escape
INEA is a mass and energy analyzer dedicated to the measurements of weakly dense atmosphere/ionosphere developed in the frame of the Earth Explorer X ESA DAEDALUS project (competitive Phase 0 and A) at LATMOS. It is also developed in the frame of a R&T project supported by the French Space Agency (CNES).
Its main goals are to measure the ion and neutral composition (with a resolution of the order of 30) and the energy distribution (with a resolution much better than 0.1 eV) of the upper atmosphere of terrestrial bodies. It is particularly suited to characterize the temperature and velocity in the Earth thermosphere as induced by the energetic particle precipitation, to measure directly the escape rate of Mars’ atmosphere and its dependency with the solar conditions but also to measure the main characteristics of the low energy range (eV range) of surface bounded exosphere as the ones of the Moon or Mercury. To simultaneously solve mass and energy allows to access directly to the processes driven by the solar forcing, to the low energy range of these neutral environments (typically below 100 eV) that cannot be observed by the low energy neutral analyzer and to partly solve the inherent difficult to observe very low dense environment on a spacecraft.
Based on an original and simple electrostatic concept, INEA uses a novel type of ionization source allowing to reduce drastically the power consumption, to control efficiently the cleanliness of the instrument and to reach highly sensitive measurement of various neutral gases. The ionization source is then followed by an optimized optical lens which focalizes the newly created ions, in the case of a neutral measurement, or the ionospheric ion, at the entrance of an energy analyzer which function is to image instantaneously the energy distribution of these ions onto a detector.
A full numerical model of this instrument has been developed demonstrating the expected performances of INEA and some of the most critical parts already prototyped up to a TRL of 5. A full prototype of this instrument will be built and tested in 2021.
Its main goals are to measure the ion and neutral composition (with a resolution of the order of 30) and the energy distribution (with a resolution much better than 0.1 eV) of the upper atmosphere of terrestrial bodies. It is particularly suited to characterize the temperature and velocity in the Earth thermosphere as induced by the energetic particle precipitation, to measure directly the escape rate of Mars’ atmosphere and its dependency with the solar conditions but also to measure the main characteristics of the low energy range (eV range) of surface bounded exosphere as the ones of the Moon or Mercury. To simultaneously solve mass and energy allows to access directly to the processes driven by the solar forcing, to the low energy range of these neutral environments (typically below 100 eV) that cannot be observed by the low energy neutral analyzer and to partly solve the inherent difficult to observe very low dense environment on a spacecraft.
Based on an original and simple electrostatic concept, INEA uses a novel type of ionization source allowing to reduce drastically the power consumption, to control efficiently the cleanliness of the instrument and to reach highly sensitive measurement of various neutral gases. The ionization source is then followed by an optimized optical lens which focalizes the newly created ions, in the case of a neutral measurement, or the ionospheric ion, at the entrance of an energy analyzer which function is to image instantaneously the energy distribution of these ions onto a detector.
A full numerical model of this instrument has been developed demonstrating the expected performances of INEA and some of the most critical parts already prototyped up to a TRL of 5. A full prototype of this instrument will be built and tested in 2021.