The BepiColombo-Mio magnetometer en route to Mercury
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The fluxgate magnetometer MGF on board the Mio spacecraft of the BepiColombo mission is introduced with its science targets, instrument design, calibration report, and scientific expectations. The MGF instrument consists of two tri-axial fluxgate magnetometers. Both sensors are mounted on a 4.8-m long mast to measure the magnetic field around Mercury at distances from near surface (initial peri-center altitude is 590 km) to 6 planetary radii (11640 km). The two sensors of MGF are operated in a fully redundant way, each with its own electronics, data processing and power supply units. The MGF instrument samples the magnetic field at a rate of up to 128 Hz to reveal rapidly-evolving magnetospheric dynamics, among them magnetic reconnection causing substorm-like disturbances, field-aligned currents, and ultra-low-frequency waves. The high time resolution of MGF is also helpful to study solar wind processes (through measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field) in the inner heliosphere. The MGF instrument firmly corroborates measurements of its companion, the MPO magnetometer, by performing multi-point observations to determine the planetary internal field at higher multi-pole orders and to separate temporal fluctuations from spatial variations.
Date Issued
2020-10-28
Date Acceptance
2020-10-03
Citation
Space Science Reviews, 2020, 216 (8), pp.1-33
ISSN
0038-6308
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
1
End Page
33
Journal / Book Title
Space Science Reviews
Volume
216
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2020.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons
licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.
If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the
copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons
licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.
If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the
copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000586118700001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
ST/S006230/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Magnetic field
Mercury
Magnetosphere
Inner heliosphere
FIELD-ALIGNED CURRENTS
KELVIN-HELMHOLTZ INSTABILITY
MAGNETIC-FIELD
MESSENGER OBSERVATIONS
SOLAR-WIND
ULF WAVES
FLUXGATE MAGNETOMETER
MAGNETOSPHERIC SUBSTORMS
DAYSIDE MAGNETOSPHERE
BOW SHOCK
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 125
Date Publish Online
2020-10-28