Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration (PEPE)

The Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration (PEPE) is one of the new instrument technologies being demonstrated with the New Millennium Deep Space One mission. PEPE will serve three purposes, (1) the characterization of the environment induced by the Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) system while validating the feasibility of flying high performance plasma instrumentation on future SEP missions, (2) to carry out state-of-the-art plasma measurements in support of the scientific investigation of an asteroid and comet flyby, and (3) to validate several new plasma sensor technologies needed for future space physics and planetary missions. PEPE's measurement capabilities approach those of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument, but with much lower resource requirements, at a lower cost and delivered on a much faster time table. PEPE will provide three dimensional mass-resolved plasma distributions up to 30 keV over 2.8 {pi} ster on a time frame of 64 seconds. PEPE simultaneously measures both ions and electrons and provides energy per charge analysis and time-of-flight measurements to yield high resolution mass analysis. Details of the PEPE design are presented as well as an overview of both the technology and scientifically driven measurement objectives. The potential future applications of PEPE technology are also discussed.