A cosmic dust detection suite for the deep space Gateway

Wozniakiewicz, Penny; Bridges, J. C.; Burchell, M. J.; Carey, William M.; Corte, Vincenzo Della; Dignam, Aishling; Genge, Matthew J.; Hicks, L. J.; Hilchenbach, M.; Hillier, Jon K.; Kearsley, A. T.; Krüger, Harald; Merouane, S.; Palomba, E.; Postberg, F.; Schmidt, J.; Srama, R.; Trieloff, M.; van-Ginneken, M.; Sterken, Veerle

doi:10.1016/j.asr.2021.04.002

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 140 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The now-overlooked original αmeteoroids, however, which are characterized by their high eccentricities, had been the predominantly detected bound dust population by the early generations of sensitive dust detectors at 1 au. Considering them is therefore vital for current and upcoming in-situ dust experiments, such as onboard DESTINY + , IMAP, and the Parker Solar Probe (as well as, potentially, on the Lunar Gateway (Wozniakiewicz et al, 2021) or the Dolphin mission (Sterken, 2022)).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Design

Sommer¹,

Pont²,

Sommer‐Nawara³

et al. 2023

2023 Bauphysik Kalender

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The term 'α-meteoroid' was introduced to describe a group of micrometeoroids with certain dynamical properties, which-alongside the group of the β-meteoroids-had been identified by the first generation of reliable in-situ dust detectors in interplanetary space. In recent years, use of the term α-meteoroid has become more frequent again, under a subtly but crucially altered definition. This work shall bring attention to the discrepancy between the term's original and newly established meaning, and spotlight the now-overlooked group of particles that the term used to describe. We review past and present pertinent literature around the term α-meteoroid, and assess the dynamics of the originally referred-to particles with respect to possible sources, showing that their formation is the expected consequence of collisional grinding of the zodiacal cloud at short heliocentric distances. The abundance of the original α-meteoroids, which are essentially 'bound β-meteoroids', makes them relevant to all in-situ dust experiments in the inner solar system. Due to the change of the term's meaning, however, they are not considered by contemporary studies. The characterization of this particle population could elucidate the processing of the innermost zodiacal cloud, and should thus be objective of upcoming in-situ dust experiments. The attained ambiguity of the term α-meteoroid is not easily resolved, warranting great care and clarity going forward.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Design

Sommer¹,

Pont²,

Sommer‐Nawara³

et al. 2023

2023 Bauphysik Kalender

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An alternative to collection from plumes via impacts onto normal-density materials is via impacts into layers of thin foils or onto low-density foams or aerogels. All these in effect involve porous targets, with either microporosity in the foams and aerogels or macro-porosity between the layers in thin-film targets (see Wozniakiewicz et al, 2021, for a recent review of capture cell technology). Considering the thin foil collectors first, an early example of such a capture cell was the microabrasion foil experiment by McDonnell et al (1984).…”

Section: Low-density Collectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Icy ocean worlds, plumes, and tasting the water

Burchell,

Wozniakiewicz

2024

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper considers how space missions that fly through the plumes known, or suspected, to erupt naturally from some icy ocean worlds (IOW), such as Enceladus, or that aim to intercept icy ejecta from impact cratering processes on such bodies can sample the water and ice within the plumes. The mechanics of how grains (either in the plumes or the ejecta) would interact with a passing spacecraft (i.e., impact speeds, shock pressures, etc.) are introduced. The impact speeds are estimated and vary with both the mass of the IOW and the orbital parameters of a space mission. This can lead to large differences in impact speeds (and hence collection methods) at bodies such as Enceladus and Europa. The implications of these different impact speeds (a few hundred m s−1 to several km s−1, and even greater than 10 km s−1) for the collection of organic materials from the plumes are shown to be significant.

show abstract

“…Furthermore, these active detectors are not able to measure the chemistry of the incoming particle and, hence, are incapable of making the distinction between debris related to human space activity and the natural meteoroids and micrometeoroids (Wozniakiewicz et al, 2019). Time of flight mass spectrometer based dust detectors, such as those used onboard Cassini, are capable of measuring the chemistry of impacting particles, however, these typically have small collection/ionisation surfaces and are limited to analysing small particles (<1 µm) and thus are unlikely to get the necessary statistics for larger particles (Wozniakiewicz et al, 2021).…”

Section: Active Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Palladium-coated kapton for use on dust detectors in low earth orbit: Performance under hypervelocity impact and atomic oxygen exposure

Dignam

Wozniakiewicz²,

Burchell³

et al. 2022

Front. Space Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Observation of dust and debris in the near Earth environment is a field of great commercial and scientific interest, vital to maximising the operational and commercial life-cycle of satellites and reducing risk to increasing numbers of astronauts in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). To this end, monitoring and assessment of the flux of particles is of paramount importance to the space industry and wider socio-economic interests that depend upon data products/services from orbital infrastructure. We have designed a passive space dust detector to investigate the dust environment in LEO—the Orbital Dust Impact Experiment (ODIE). ODIE is designed for deployment in LEO for ∼1 year, whereupon it would be returned to Earth for analysis of impact features generated by dust particles. The design emphasises the ability to distinguish between the orbital debris (OD) relating to human space activity and the naturally occurring micrometeoroid (MM) population at millimetre to submillimetre scales. ODIE is comprised of multiple Kapton foils, which have shown great potential to effectively preserve details of the impacting particles’ size and chemistry, with residue chemistry being used to interpret an origin (OD vs. MM). LEO is a harsh environment—the highly erosive effects of atomic oxygen damage Kapton foil—requiring the use of a protective coating. Common coatings available for Kapton (e.g., Al, SiO2, etc.) are problematic for subsequent analysis and interpretation of OD vs. MM origin, being a common elemental component of MM or OD, or having X-ray emission peaks overlapping with those of elements used to distinguish MM from OD. We thus propose palladium coatings as an alternative for this application. Here we report on the performance of palladium as a protective coating for a Kapton-based passive dust detector when exposed to atomic oxygen and impact. When subjected to impact, we observe that thicker coatings suffer delamination such that a coating of <50 nm is recommended. Analysis of atomic oxygen exposed samples shows a thin 10 nm coating of palladium significantly reduces the mass loss of Kapton, while coatings of 25 nm and over perform as well as or better than other commonly used coatings.

show abstract

A cosmic dust detection suite for the deep space Gateway

Cited by 7 publications

References 140 publications

Energy Design

Energy Design

Icy ocean worlds, plumes, and tasting the water

Palladium-coated kapton for use on dust detectors in low earth orbit: Performance under hypervelocity impact and atomic oxygen exposure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About