The Jovian Plasma Dynamics and Composition Analyzer (JDC) for ESA's JUICE Mission

Abstract: This dissertation covers the development and calibration of the Jovian plasma Dynamics and Composition analyzer (JDC). JDC is together with five other sensors a part of the Particle Environment Package (PEP), one of the payloads of the European Space Agency's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. The JUICE mission is designed to broaden our understanding of the Jovian system including Jupiter, the four Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) and Jupiter's vast magnetosphere. JUICE is planned to launch in 2023.The PEP payload will study the plasma environment around Jupiter and its moons in great detail. As one of the sensors of PEP, JDC will measure the energy distribution of positive and negative ions as well as electrons in an energy range from a few eV/q up to 35keV/q. The field of view covered by JDC spans over a full hemisphere. JDC also determines the mass of particles using the time-of-flight principle. Alternatively, there is the possibility to determine the distribution of particle arrival times to study their distribution in the time domain.In this thesis, ion-optical, mechanical, electrical, thermal, radiation shielding and instrument operation related design solutions are presented and discussed. Special attention was paid to the performance of the channel electron multipliers used as time-of-flight start detectors. To verify their performance throughout the whole mission, a full lifetime test for these detectors was successfully performed. As a result of this test a qualitative performance model for channel electron multipliers was developed. Another experiment included in this work is the determination of the residual gas pressure evolution inside of JDC. A sufficiently low residual gas pressure is required for safe operation of JDC's high voltage systems. Finally, the performance of the JDC linear electric field reflectron was verified using a dedicated prototype.The last part of this work describes the methods used for instrument calibration and first results of the calibration of the flight spare model of JDC, the unit that will fly to Jupiter, are presented.