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Published February 1979 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment

Abstract

The Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment includes seven dE/dx- E telescopes to measure the energy and charge of particles of 1 ≤ Z ≤ 26 in the energy range 1-500 MeV/ nucleon and to measure electron energy in the range 3 ≤ E_e ≤ 110 MeV. Isotopic composition of hydrogen through sulfur in the range up to 75 MeV/nucleon can also be resolved. The electronic systems include a dual-gain, charge sensitive preamplifier, 4096-channel pulse height analyzers for three parameter analysis of selected events, and an event type readout polling scheme to maximize the use of available telemetry space and to enhance the occurrence of rare events in the data. Details of the detector, electronic and mechanical design are presented.

Additional Information

U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright. The development of the Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment was a joint effort of the California Institute of Technology, the University of New Hampshire, and NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The authors wish to thank F. Yates and B. Gauld of Caltech (GSE hardware and software development), and D. Argo and N. Lal of the Computer Sciences Corporation at GSFC for pre- and post-launch software development. The LET and TET designs, testing and calibrations at Caltech were capably performed by S. Hartman and R. Cook, respectively. The analog signal processor was designed and tested by Spacetac, Inc., Burlington, MA--we particularly acknowledge the efforts of G. Adaniya, A. Rizzo, J. Zukauskis, G. Pacquin, J. Bernstein and N. Elliot. Surface barrier detectors were obtained from Ortec, Inc., and the Li-drifted detectors were supplied by the Kevex Corp. At GSFC, the preamps, data systems and overall experiment assembly was performed by M. Beazley, M. Powers and S. Allison; the rate counting system was provided by H. White; and mechanical design of the telescopes and main structure was provided by H. Trexel and F. Shaffer. G. Evans and J. Mills were particularly patient and helpful in the preparation of this manuscript. T. Conlon kindly provided the data shown in Figure 8. We also wish to acknowledge the patience and support of the Voyager Project Office at JPL, particularly J. Otte and E. Franzgrote, and the many individuals of the integration and test crews. To all, we extend our sincere thanks for their tireless and successful efforts.

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August 19, 2023
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