BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter Magnetometer Instrument
Objective
To measure the magnetic field vector along the MPO spacecraft orbit (accuracy typically: 0.3 nT, range +/- 2048nT) at sampling rates up to 10 vectors/s. Full orbit coverage (including operation during eclipse) is required for selected orbits.
Instrument Design
The magnetometer instrument consists of a spacecraft mounted electronics box and two boom mounted tri-axial fluxgate sensors. The instrument is being built by a consortium of three European institutes: the in Braunschweig, Germany, the Space Research Institute () in Graz, Austria and ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ. The hardware contributions from each institute is shown in the instrument block diagram. Technical management of the MPO magnetometer is handled by the Space Research Institute. ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ College is providing the instrument DC/DC converter, which converts the +28V supply from the spacecraft to the analogue and digital voltages required by the instrument, and the electronics box.
