Speaker
Description
An Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), designed for sampling of low mass ionised and neutral particles in the spacecraft ram direction, was developed for the EU QB50 CubeSat constellation mission. 9 INMS instrument were launched on their respective educational CubeSats and to date, data has been returned for a one month period from the one working QB50 CubeSat. Two further sensors are due to be launched in mid-2021 on the CIRCE mission. Subsequently, an enhanced performance INMS has been developed for the Satellite for Aerodynamic Research (SOAR), a CubeSat being developed for the H2020 DISCOVERER project, currently scheduled for launch in May 2021. The instrument is a gated time-of-flight and will add a velocity measurement capability to the INMS. Both the INMS instruments are suitable for measurement of Atomic Oxygen (AtOx) in LEO. This paper will present an overview of the instrument designs, some preliminary results of in-flight AtOx measurements from the QB50 INMS and an outlook of expected measurements from CIRCE and SOAR.
