A Dust Telescope is a combination of a Trajectory Sensor with an analyzer for the elemental composition of micrometeoroids or space debris. Dust particle trajectories are determined by the measurement of the electric signals that are induced when a charged grain passes through a position sensitive electrode system. The position sensitive system consists of four planes of wires where each wire is connected to a separate charge sensitive amplifier. The amplifier is based on CMOS technology and

more »

... developed in cooperation with the ASIC Laboratory in Heidelberg. Furthermore, a 32 channel transient recorder (TR) running with 20 MHz and 10 bit resolution was developed and manufactured in order to store the individual signals. This system allows the accurate determination of the particle velocity vector. The elemental composition of particles is analyzed by a time-of-flight system for the ions which are generated upon the particle impact. The large area of this mass analyzer is 0.1 m 2 and has a mass resolution above 100 for all possible impact locations. This paper describes the performances of the laboratory model of the Trajectory Sensor and shows the study results of the mass spectrometer.