M-MATISSE is an ESA Medium class candidate (M7 call) in phase A study. M-MATISSE would place two spacecraft in orbit around Mars to study the solar wind – magnetosphere – ionosphere – atmosphere coupling at the red planet. Amongst the comprehensive payload of M-MATISSE, the Mars Ensemble of Particle Instruments (M-EPI) includes a low-energy neutral and ion detector, an electron spectrometer, and a medium-energy particle instrument.For M-MATISSE and the M-EPI package, IRAP and its partners are developing the Solar Particles @ Mars (SP@M) experiment to study 30 keV to 1 MeV electrons and 30 keV to 10 MeV ions. The main scientific objective of SP@M is the characterization of Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) and suprathermal particle populations throughout the Martian magnetosphere and atmosphere. This characterization is essential to understand atmospheric escape, SEP-induced aurorae, and radar blackouts. It would also advance the assessment of radiation risk for future robotic and human missions to Mars.SP@M would employ 8 detection units per spacecraft, 4 dedicated to electrons and 4 to ions. Each detection unit would use a single thick SSD (thickness of 1 to 1.5 mm) suitable for the targeted energy range. In this presentation, we will introduce the phase A activities of the instrument, including the mechanical and electronics design of SP@M, the electron-ion discrimination strategy, and simulations of the expected performances.

The main goal of ESA’s F-1 class Comet Interceptor mission is to characterise, for the first time, a long period comet; preferably a dynamically-new or an interstellar object. The main spacecraft, will have its trajectory outside of the inner coma, whereas two sub-spacecrafts will be targeted inside the inner coma, closer to the nucleus. The flyby of such a comet will offer unique multipoint measurement opportunity to study the comet's dusty and ionised environment in ways exceeding that of the previous cometary missions, including Rosetta. The Dust Field and Plasma (DFP) instruments located on both the main spacecraft A and on the sub-spacecraft B2, is a combined experiment dedicated to the in situ, multi-point study of the multi-phased ionized and dusty environment in the coma of the target and its interaction with the surrounding space environment and the Sun. The DFP instruments will be present in different configurations on the Comet Interceptor spacecraft A and B2. To enable the measurements on spacecraft A, the DFP is composed of 5 sensors; Fluxgate magnetometer DFP-FGM-A, Plasma instrument with nanodust and E-field measurements capabilities DFP-COMPLIMENT, Electron spectrometer DFP-LEES, Ion and energetic neutrals spectrometer DFP-SCIENA and Dust detector DFP-DISC. On board of spacecraft B2 the DFP is composed of 2 sensors: Fluxgate magnetometer DFP-FGM-B2 and Cometary dust detector DFP-DISC. The DFP instrument will measure magnetic field, the electric field, plasma parameters (density, temperature, speed), the distribution functions of electrons, ions and energetic neutrals, spacecraft potential, mass, number and spatial density of cometary dust particles and the dust impacts. The full set of DFP sensors will allow to model the comet plasma environment and its interaction with the solar wind. It will also allow to describe the complex physical processes including wave particle interaction in dusty cometary plasma.

An important technique of modern space plasma diagnostics is a detection and imaging of low energy (below 10 keV) energetic neutral atoms (ENA). Any space mission devoted to study of the planetary plasma environments, planetary magnetospheres and heliosphere boundaries, needs a low energy ENA imaging sensor in its payload list. A common approach to the ENA detection/imaging is to make energetic neutral atoms glance a high quality conductive surface and either produce a secondary electron, or produce a positive or negative reflection ion. In the first case we can collect and detect the yielded secondary electron and generate a start signal. The reflected neutral atom can be directed to another surface with a high secondary electron yield. Thus we can measure a time-of-flight of the reflected particle to get its velocity. In the second case we can analyze the reflected ion in an electrostatic analyzer to get the particle energy.Many types of conversion surfaces have been investigated over last decades in order to optimize an ENA sensor properties. We investigated properties of a thin layer of graphene applied to a silicon wafer surface. The experimental setup consisted of a secondary electron detector, neutral/ions separator and a high resolution particle imager. We used an incident He beam with energy of 200 eV - 3000 eV. We obtained a secondary electron emission, particle reflection efficiency, scattering properties, and a positive ion production rate as a function of the incident beam energy and the grazing angle. The experiment results show that 1) Graphene is a good source of secondary electrons even for low energy incident particles; 2) ENA scatter from the graphene surface similar to other surface types; 3) Graphene does not convert incident ENA to positive ions, especially for high grazing angles.