A design of dust analyzer for future Main Belt Comet exploration mission

A Main Belt Comet exploration mission has been proposed to perform rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet in the future, and the probe will orbit the comet and carry on complete investigation. The scientific objective of the Main Belt Comet Dust Analyzer (MBCDA) instrument, part of the scientific payload onboard the Main Belt Comet mission, is to explore the ejections, orbit activity and origin of the comet, as well as dust evolution in the coma and their influence on the probe. To this aim, MBCDA is composed of different modules: a Microbalance Sensor system, to measure the dust flux from different directions and perform a thermo-gravimetric analysis, a Dust Size Sensor, to monitor the grain's diameter by optical detection, a Dust Momentum Sensor, to detect the momentum carried by the particles, and a Microscopic Imaging System, to obtain the morphological, charging properties and composition information of the comet dust. The preliminary calibration results of MBCDA demonstrate that the instrument is basically compatible with design specifications and is suitable to obtain scientific results about cometary dust.