Physical aspect of an “impact sensor” for the detection of cometary dust momentum onboard the “Rosetta” space mission Original Research Article

The Impact Sensor (IS) is a subsystem of the GIADA experiment onboard the Rosetta space mission and is aimed at measuring the momentum of cometary grains in the range from 3·10−11 to 3·10−5 N·s. This sensing device is formed by an aluminium plate equipped with five piezoelectric elements, which are mounted below each corner and its center. Tests have been performed on a laboratory model of the IS, fully representative of the flight unit, to demonstrate that the performances are compatible with the design specifications and to address the dependence of the output signal on some of the most relevant parameters of impacting grains, i.e. shape, composition, momentum and position of the impact. The results reported in the present paper summarize the capabilities of such an impact momentum detector.