MPS,SPS,VDP-S: measurements of charged particles

The main objective of measurements of charged particles and plasma flux characteristics in the INTERBALL project is to study the spatial structure of the terrestrial magnetosphere as a global system in various scales and for varying external conditions.
The subsatellites are equipped with the ion/electron spectrometers similar to those installed aboard the main spacecraft.The MPS spectrometer aboard the Auroral Probe (AP) is designed for measuring the anisotropy of the ion fluxes along the magnetic field and the EPS spectrometer is used to study the ion and electron pitch angle distribution.
The MPS spectrometer aboard the Tail Probe is designed to carry out a long-period monitoring of the solar wind parameters and to register the ion fluxes in the bow-shock region when the satellite will be in the appropriate regions. The spectrometer is oriented along the Sun-Earth direction. The SPS spectrometer is designed for estimating the ion energy and angular distributions and for measurements of the electron energy distributions. The MPS and SPS spectrometers have limited angular characteristics, for this reason the system includes the VDP-S instrument which is designed for rapid determining of the ion flux direction variations. The described above instruments have the parameters listed in the Table.

Main parametersSPSMPS
Particles under measurementsions/electronsions
Number of channels3 for ions,1 for electrons2 for ions
Energy range0.2-20 keV0.2-20 keV
Number of energy steps (can be varied by command)1616
Energy resolution<10%<10%
Angular aperture (in the plane parallel to the main axis)3x45 for ions,135 for electrons4
Angular aperture (in the plane perpendicular to the main axis)44
Method of registrationdouble hemispherical analyzer with microchannel platesElectrostatic analyzer (127 ) with channeltron

Contact persons:

J.Safrankova safrank@aci.cvut.cz - Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
A.Fedorov af@afed.iki.rssi.ru - Space Research Institute, Russian Acad. Sci., Moscow, Russia.
J.Simunek - Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Czech Acad. Sci.,Prague, Czech Republic.
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