The Suprathermal and Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC) instrument is part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures thermal ions to moderate energy escaping ions.
Goals:
- Measure the source ion populations near periapsis, the heated ionospheric ions at intermediate altitudes that achieve escape velocity, and the pickup acceleration of these ions in the magnetosheath and solar wind
- Allow direct measurements of the Martian sheath plasma, separating shocked solar wind and planetary ions that populate the sheath and plasma sheet
Observations:
- Escaping ions and processes
- Composition of thermal to energetic ions; energy distributions and pitch angle variations
- Ionospheric Ions 0.1-10 eV
- Tail Superthermal ions (5-100eV)
- Pick-up Ions (100-20,000 eV)
- Key ions H+, O+, O2+, CO2+
Technical details and heritage:
- Toroidal Electrostatic Analyzer with Time of Flight section
- Mass Range 1-70 AMU, ΔM/M > 4
- Energy range ~0.1 eV to 30 keV, ΔE/E~15%
- FOV 360o X 90o
- Angular Resolution 22.5o x 6o
- Energy Flux < 104 to 109 eV/cm2-s-sr-eV (to 1012 w/attenuators for low energy beam)
- Can be oriented to measure either upwelling/downwelling or horizontal flows
- Heritage from Cluster CODIF
Instrument publications:
- Altitude dependence of nightside Martian suprathermal electron depletions as revealed by MAVEN observations
(Geophysical Research Letters article—published online November 2015)—Download PDF (3 MB) - MAVEN SupraThermal and Thermal Ion Compostion (STATIC) Instrument
(Space Science Reviews article—published online November 2015)—Download PDF (13 MB)
The STATIC instrument lead is Jim McFadden (SSL). For more about McFadden, visit: http://bit.ly/jpmbio.
MAVEN Science Community Workshop Presentation
(Dec. 2, 2012)