The energetic particle telescope (EPT) on board PROBA-V: Description of a new science-class instrument for particle detection in space

Mathias Cyamukungu, Sylvie Benck, Stanislav Borisov, Ghislain Gregoire, Juan Cabrera, Jean Luc Bonnet, Bart Desoete, Frank Preudrhomme, Christophe Semaille, Glenn Creve, Juergen De Saedeleer, Stijn Ilsen, Luc De Busser, Viviane Pierrard, Sabrina Bonnewijn, Jeroen Maes, Emiel Van Ransbeeck, Eddy Neefs, Joseph Lemaire, Eino ValtonenRisto Punkkinen, Michel Anciaux, Karim Litefti, Nicolas Brun, Dirk Pauwels, Cyril Quevrin, Didier Moreau, Anuschka Helderweirt, Wojtek Hajdas, Petteri Nieminen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed description of the Energetic Particle Telescope (EPT) accommodated on board the PROBA-V satellite launched on May 7th, 2013 on a LEO, 820 km altitude, 98.7 inclination and a 10:30-11:30 Local Time at Descending Node. The EPT is an ionizing particle spectrometer that was designed based on a new concept and the most advanced signal processing technologies: it performs in-flight electron and ion discrimination and classifies each detected particle in its corresponding physical channels from which the incident spectrum can be readily reconstructed. The detector measures electron fluxes in the energy range 0.5-20 MeV, proton fluxes in the energy range 9.5-300 MeV and He-ion fluxes between 38 and 1200 MeV. The EPT is a modular configurable instrument with customizable maximum energy, field of view angle, geometrical factor and angular resolution. Therefore, the features of the currently flying instrument may slightly differ from those described in past or future configurations. After a description of the instrument along with the data acquisition and analysis procedures, the first particle fluxes measured by the EPT will be shown and discussed. The web-site located at http://web.csr.ucl.ac.be/csr-web/probav/which daily displays measured fluxes and other related studies will also be briefly described.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3667-3681
Number of pages15
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume61
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 1963-2012 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Energetic particle detector
  • Space radiation environment
  • instrumentation
  • particle spectrometer

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