Title:

BEEPS Mass Spectrometer Redesign

The B-field Electrostatic Energetic Particle Spectrometer (BEEPS) is a two-stage instrument that is comprised of an electrostatic analyzer and a mass spectrometer. A redesign of the BEEPS was motivated by findings from the 2015 rocket mission, “Rocket Experiment for Neutral Upwelling 2" (RENU2). During RENU2, emissions from diatomic nitrogen ions above the ionosphere F-region were measured from both space and ground instruments. It has long been established that ionic oxygen and hydrogen are the dominant species in this region. Though the percentage of diatomic nitrogen is low, its mass is roughly double that of oxygen. This suggests that its role in the region could be larger than was previously understood. The original BEEPS was designed to separate only ionic hydrogen from larger ions. The objective for this redesign was then to determine what changes needed to be made so that BEEPS could separate diatomic nitrogen and monatomic oxygen ions. To accomplish this the instrument was almost doubled and a more advanced magnet was modelled and exported into particle simulations. Particle simulations found that separation was possible, with increases in particle energies reducing both separation and beam distribution widths. A separation of 3mm was simulated for particles at 500eV. Separation between ion beam distributions over 600 eV was found to be minimal.

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