Use of a Langmuir Probe Instrument on Board a Pico-Satellite

Ranvier, Sylvain; Anciaux, Michel; Cardoen, Pepijn; Gamby, E.; Bonnewijn, Ir Sabrina; Keyser, Johan De; Pieroux, Didier; Lebreton, Jean‐Pierre

doi:10.1109/tps.2017.2700211

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Langmuir probe instruments have been used for decades on board large-to medium-sized satellites to measure ambient plasma properties (electron density and temperature together with ion density) (Boggess et al, 1959;Brace et al, 1965;Lebreton et al, 2006;Eriksson et al, 2007;Andersson et al, 2015;Knudsen et al, 2017), but their operation on board smaller platforms, such as nano-satellites, raises several issues in addition to miniaturisation and drastic reduction of power consumption. The limited conducting area of the spacecraft leads to spacecraft charging and drift of the instrument's electrical ground during the measurements, which can lead to unusable data (Ranvier et al, 2017;Leon et al, 2022). Furthermore, the limited telemetry bandwidth available on nano-satellites to small satellites requires the use of specific measurement and data processing approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory measurements of the performances of the Sweeping Langmuir Probe instrument aboard the PICASSO CubeSat

Ranvier

Lebreton²

2023

Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst.

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Abstract. The Sweeping Langmuir Probe (SLP) is one of the instruments on board the triple-unit CubeSat PICASSO, an ESA in-orbit demonstrator launched in September 2020, which is flying at about 540 km altitude. SLP comprises four small cylindrical probes mounted at the tip of the solar panels. It aims to perform in situ measurements of the plasma parameters (electron density and temperature together with ion density) and of the spacecraft potential in the ionosphere. Before the launch, the instrument, accommodated on an electrically representative PICASSO mock-up, was tested in a plasma chamber. It is shown that the traditional orbital-motion-limited collection theory used for cylindrical Langmuir probes cannot be applied directly for the interpretation of the measurements because of the limited dimensions of the probes with respect to the Debye length in the ionosphere. Nevertheless, this method can be adapted to take into account the short length of the probes. To reduce the data downlink while keeping the most important information in the current-voltage characteristics, SLP includes an on-board adaptive sweeping capability. This functionality has been validated in both the plasma chamber and in space, and it is demonstrated that with a reduced number of data points the electron retardation and electron saturation regions can be well resolved. Finally, the effect of the contamination of the probe surface, which can be a serious issue in Langmuir probe data analysis, has been investigated. If not accounted for properly, this effect could lead to substantial errors in the estimation of the electron temperature.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory measurements of the performances of the Sweeping Langmuir Probe instrument aboard the PICASSO CubeSat

Ranvier

Lebreton²

2023

Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst.

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“…It has important advantages including simple structure, low construction cost, high disturbance resistance and relatively lightweight ancillary electronic systems. Therefore, it has a wide range of applications in fusion [1][2][3], plasma processing [4], space plasma [5][6][7][8] and electric propulsion testing [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presheath formation and area design limit satellite-based Langmuir probes

Jin

Yip

Sun

et al. 2023

Plasma Sci. Technol.

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In this article, the effect of finite conductive surface area of a satellite on the use of satellite-based Langmuir probes is reviewed in light of the basic theory of asymmetric double Langmuir probes (ADLPs). Recent theoretical and experimental works have discussed electron sheath/presheath formation and the electron Bohm criterion along with their implications on the satellite-based Langmuir probes. The effects predicted by the latest theory of electron Bohm criterion were not experimentally observed and the experimental result remains supportive of a critical area ratio (AL/AS)crit = (mi/(2.3me))1/2 between the probe area AS and the satellite area AL as conventionally believed. A satellite-based Langmuir probe must satisfy this criterion to physically act as a single Langmuir probe. However, experimental investigations also found that high-energy electrons adversely affect (AL/AS)crit and a Langmuir probe’s signal quality by giving additional electron current to AL. With these results, a series of limitations of maximum probe area are derived when designing satellite-based Langmuir probes, with consideration of both mission what the satellite aims and plasma where the satellite-based probe works. This series of proposed measures is expected to only partially alleviate the effect of the inadequate satellite surface area on the application of satellite-based Langmuir probes. Using a larger satellite to carry a Langmuir probe remains the most viable means to obtain precise space plasma parameters.

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“…It is also the only diagnostic tool capable of directly measuring a plasma's electron energy distribution function (EEDF) other than laser Thomson scattering (LTS), which is very expensive and technically complex to implement. However, being a fundamentally invasive diagnostic, Langmuir probes tend to perturb a plasma by drawing an extra current from the discharge, and this becomes problematic in situations where the balance of charge loss areas are delicate to begin with; examples include miniaturized devices [1][2][3], magnetized plasmas [4][5][6], plasmas with high neutral collisionality [7], and on satellites [8][9][10][11] where the spacecraft is floating and the electron current collected by the probe must be balanced by the ion current on the satellite's conductive surfaces. One of the common measures in response to this issue is the employment of double Langmuir probes (DLPs) instead of single Langmuir probes, where the two probe tips draw zero net current from the plasma [12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A self-balanced electron-emissive double Langmuir probe drawing no electron loss from its diagnosed plasma

Yip,

Jin,

Zhang

et al. 2023

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol.

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In this work, a new form of double Langmuir probe system, an Emissive Double Langmuir probe (EDLP), which connects a collecting probe tip and an electron emitting probe tip to form a double Langmuir probe system, has been proposed as a replacement of the currently more common asymmetric double Langmuir probes (ADLP). The EDLP was both computationally and experimentally investigated in this work. Using an emissive probe to provide an emission current IE to balance the electron collection current IC,e, the EDLP can obtain a full I-V trace when IE,TL > IC,es and be used in a similar manner with a single Langmuir probe except the EDLP, as with the ADLP, does not measure the local plasma potential. IE,TL >> IC,es can be realized on an EDLP without needing the much larger ion collection area required by the ADLP, and at IE,TL ~ 2IC,es the relative error between the EDLP and a single Langmuir probe is ~15% due to SCL effects, which is better than that of the ADLP at ~30% under similar conditions. The performance of an EDLP depends on whether its electron emission current sufficiently offsets its electron collecting current, making it particularly fitted for scenarios where plasma density is low but a large probe is difficult to employ due to limited balancing ion current. This makes the EDLP potentially useful on satellites which operates in very low temperature plasmas with a limited ion loss area to balance a Langmuir probe’s electron collecting current. With the advances of highly emitting materials, EDLPs are expected to significantly remove design barriers of Langmuir probes on satellites.

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Use of a Langmuir Probe Instrument on Board a Pico-Satellite

Cited by 12 publications

References 5 publications

Laboratory measurements of the performances of the Sweeping Langmuir Probe instrument aboard the PICASSO CubeSat

Laboratory measurements of the performances of the Sweeping Langmuir Probe instrument aboard the PICASSO CubeSat

Presheath formation and area design limit satellite-based Langmuir probes

A self-balanced electron-emissive double Langmuir probe drawing no electron loss from its diagnosed plasma

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