A new instrument to measure charged and neutral cometary dust particles at low and high impact velocities

A new class of dust particle detector, the PVDF dust detector, was designed for space missions such as the Halley Comet missions where the particle impact velocity is very high. It is demonstrated that this same PVDF detector (operating in a different mode) also has the capability of detecting dust particles having low velocity (approx. 100 m/s). This low velocity detection capability is extremely important in terms of planned missions requiring measurement of low velocity dust particles such as comet rendezvous missions. An additional detecting element (charge induction cylinder) was also developed which, when combined with a PVDF detector, yields a system which will measure the charge (magnitude and sign) carried by a cometary particle as well as the particle velocity and mass for impact velocities in the range 100 to 500 m/s. Since the cylinder-PVDF detector system has a relatively small geometry factors, an array of PVDF detectors was included having a total sensing area of 0.1 sq m for measurements in regions of space where the dust flux is expected to be low. The characteristics of the detectors in this array have been chosen to provide optimum mass sensitivity for both low-velocity cometary dust as well as high-velocity asteroid associated and interplanetary dust.