Plasma experiment PICAM on Bepi Colombo Planetary Orbiter, ESA's mission to Mercury

by

Oleg Vaisberg, Ph.D.
Main Research Scientist
Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences

Friday, 15 June 2007
Socialization : 10:15 a.m.
Presentation : 10:30 a.m.

The BepiColombo mission includes two satellites of Mercury: ESA's Mercury Planetary orbiter (MPO) and ISAS' Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). They will be launched in 2013 by Russian Soyuz-Fregat and after multiple planetary gravity assists will reach Mercury in 2019. Objectives of the mission include investigation of planet and its origin, atmosphere, and magnetosphere. Combination of MPO orbit of 400 x 1508 km and MMO orbit of 400 x 11,824 km there provides excellent opportunity of magnetospheric and exospheric investigation.
MPO includes the suite of instruments for measurements of neutral and energetic particles. One of these instruments PICAM (Planetary Ion CAMera) is a novel type of instrument for measurements of ions and their composition. Wide-angle electro-optics provides instantaneous unobscured 2-pi field-of-view with image of selected energy ion flux on MCP detector. Gated time-of-flight mass-spectrometer provides the possibility of measuring hemispheric flux distributions independently for different ions. Numerical simulations and laboratory measurements of instrument characteristics will be presented.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Graduated from Moscow State University in 1957 as an astronomer. Science positions at Institute of Atmospheric Physics, 1957-1967 Space Research Institute (IKI) since 1967, Head of the solar wind laboratory it 1976-2004. Senior Research associate at MSFC (1999-2000) and at GSFC (2000-2002). Staff Scientist at SwRI (2004-2006) Main Research Scientist at IKI since 2006.
Received PhD from in 1964 for auroral spectroscopy. Main areas of interest: solar wind interaction with planets, interplanetary shocks, boundary layers, space plasma instrumentation.
Principal investigator of plasma experiments on Mars-2,3,5 (1971-1975), Venera-9,10 (1975-1976) space probes, Earth's satellites Prognoz-1,2,8,10 (1972-1985), Interball Tail probe (1995-2000), PI of dust experiment on Vega-1,2 spacecraft (1985-1986). Currently Co-I of plasma experiments on BepiColombo and Phobos-Soil. Over 190 publications.

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