The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) comprises the hardware and accompanying science investigation on the New Horizons spacecraft to measure pick-up ions from Pluto's outgassing atmosphere. To the extent that Pluto retains its characteristics similar to those of a "heavy comet" as detected in stellar occultations since the early 1980s, these measurements will characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto while providing a consistency check on the atmospheric escape rate at the encounter epoch with that deduced from the atmospheric structure at lower altitudes by the ALICE, REX, and SWAP experiments on New Horizons. In addition, PEPSSI will characterize any extended ionosphere and solar wind interaction while also characterizing the energetic particle environment of Pluto, Charon, and their associated system. First proposed for development for the Pluto Express mission in September 1993, what became the PEPSSI instrument went through a number of development stages to meet the requirements of such an instrument for a mission to Pluto while minimizing the required spacecraft resources. The PEPSSI instrument provides for measurements of ions (with compositional information) and electrons from 10s of keV to ~1 MeV in a 120° x 12° fan-shaped beam in six sectors for 1.5 kg and ~2.5 W.
The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) comprises the hardware and accompanying science investigation on the New Horizons spacecraft to measure pick-up ions from Pluto's outgassing atmosphere. To the extent that Pluto retains its characteristics similar to those of a "heavy comet" as detected in stellar occultations since the early 1980s, these measurements will characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto while providing a consistency check on the atmospheric escape rate at the encounter epoch with that deduced from the atmospheric structure at lower altitudes by the ALICE, REX, and SWAP experiments on New Horizons. In addition, PEPSSI will characterize any extended ionosphere and solar wind interaction while also characterizing the energetic particle environment of Pluto, Charon, and their associated system. First proposed for development for the Pluto Express mission in September 1993, what became the PEPSSI instrument went through a number of development stages to meet the requirements of such an instrument for a mission to Pluto while minimizing the required spacecraft resources. The PEPSSI instrument provides for measurements of ions (with compositional information) and electrons from 10 s of keV to ∼1 MeV in a 160°× 12°fan-shaped beam in six sectors for 1.5 kg and ∼2.5 W.
In this paper, the design and test results of a 4-channel digital isolation amplifier are presented, along with results of a prototype power converter circuit using the amplifier for voltage feedback regulation. The amplifier uses a capacitive coupling technique to transfer digital signals from input to output while preserving galvanic isolation between the two. The isolation amplifier was fabricated in a 0.5 µm Silicon-on-Sapphire (SOS) technology and uses the isolation properties of the SOS substrate to achieve more than 800 V isolation between input and output grounds. Each of the four channels can operate in excess of 100 Mbps using a differential transmission scheme to reject ground bounce transients up to 1 V/µs. The input circuit can be powered from an on-chip charge-pump to permit single supply operation. The device can be used in a wide variety of applications that require passing signals across an isolation barrier: power supplies, remote sensing, and medical and industrial applications.
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