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Variation in relative dust impact charge recollection with antenna to spacecraft potential on STEREO
Author(s) -
Thayer Frederick M.,
Malaspina David M.,
Collette Andrew,
Sternovsky Zoltan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/2015ja021983
Subject(s) - spacecraft , spacecraft charging , electric field , antenna (radio) , aerospace engineering , physics , voltage , instrumentation (computer programming) , charge (physics) , environmental science , remote sensing , atmospheric sciences , electrical engineering , computer science , engineering , geology , quantum mechanics , operating system
High‐velocity dust that impacts spacecraft releases charged plasma clouds that can create voltage perturbations that are measured by electric field instrumentation. These voltage perturbations are characterized by a relative maximum and minimum, which correspond to body and antenna charge recollection, respectively. The charge recollected by the antenna relative to the total recollected charge is found to correlate with the potential difference between the spacecraft and the antenna. From data analysis that spanned 2007–2013 on the STEREO‐A spacecraft, a positive correlation is found. This relationship will support future dust analysis with electric field instrumentation because it defines one spacecraft property that affects relative charge recollection.