The Helios A/B cosmic ray instrument /E 7/

Abstract

This paper describes the design and performance of a cosmic ray particle experiment for the Helios A/B space missions. This experiment had to be very lightweight, low power and electronically sophisticated in order to meet the spacecraft and scientific requirements, and very similar to those on the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions to Jupiter. Both sets of missions use several solid-state detector telescopes to measure protons from 100 KeV to 800 MeV per nucleon. Additionally, the Helios experiment includes a proportional counter to monitor the solar X-ray activity. The experiment has functioned quite well for 5 months in space, and large quantities of data are now being received.