Multi-directional measurements of high energy particles from the Sun-Earth L1 point with STEPS

Abstract

Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) is one of the scientific experiments onboard the Aditya-L1 mission, the first Indian solar mission planned to be launched in the year of 2019. The primary objective of the ASPEX experiment is to carry out in-situ, multi-directional measurements of solar wind ions in the energy range of 100 eV/n to 5 MeV/n. ASPEX instrument has been configured into two subsystems: Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) and Supra Thermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS). SWIS will measure the angular and energy distribution of solar wind ions in the energy range of 100 eV to 20 keV and STEPS will measure the energy spectrum of high energetic particles from six directions covering the energy range of 20 keV/n to 5 MeV/n. This paper presents the overall configuration of the STEPS subsystem with preliminary results obtained from the bread board model.