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We are designing a 3U CubeSat using solar sail. We have everything we need for all the subsystems except payload. Our mission is to measure charged particle density, particle density and temperature. We have a temp sensor already, but we can not find any information on the the other sensors. Do any of you know where we can look for those sensors, or how to go about designing one?

GEAUXTIGHAS
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  • Great question! I recommend you look first to the very earliest Earth orbiting satellites to see what they did and what they measured. If by "particle" you mean micrometeorites for example, then a small microphone somehow coupled to a stiff plate of metal and something to count the "pings" will work. Google "Arduino sound detector" for the simplest possible sound to logic pulse converter. People are still using sound detectors to record micrometeorites today! – uhoh Mar 01 '22 at 02:19
  • However even simple charged particle detectors will be more challenging. Step 1 is to define the range of altitudes where you plan to be deployed, then look up the plasma density there. These will be very low energy particles and you'll probably need a super-sensitive DC picoammeter or electrometer chip to measure them, unless you have some high voltage and some kind of electron multiplier. For high energy protons there are other ways, but usually involve electron multiplication of some kind (channel plates, photomultiplier tubes, avalanche photodiodes, etc.) – uhoh Mar 01 '22 at 02:22
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    However you can also image random tracks in an old CCD or CMOS (the thicker the depletion region, the better!) imager that's kept in complete darkness, process the images once a minute (or hour if it's kept cold) and count the tracks. – uhoh Mar 01 '22 at 02:23
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    This seems very broad to me. 'How do I go about designing a sensor' is several book topics. – GdD Mar 01 '22 at 08:38
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    if you're not sure how to measure charged particle density, then i wouldn't bet that your temperature sensor will work under the conditions you will encounter on orbit, or that it will measure the same thing that is used to define temperature in plasmas. – Ryan C Mar 01 '22 at 20:09

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