The Solar Probe Analyzer for Ions (SPAN-Ion)

Keywords: space, mass spectrometry, electrostatic analyzer, solar wind

• Space Agencies: Improve our understanding of the formation and transport of the solar wind and plasma to protect astronauts and hardware
• NASA: Measure the ion composition and 3D distribution of the solar wind and coronal plasma
• Berkeley SSL: Develop time-of-flight hardware for a time-of-flight ion mass spectrometer
• Pister Group: Design a sensor frontend which converts analog to digital pulses with timing independent of input pulse height

As of February 2022, it's still going! We taped out a chip in TSMC180nm on July 21, 2021.

Current:

• Lydia Lee

Former/Graduated:

• Mia Mirkovic (UMich Space Physics Research Lab)
• Artun Dalyan
• Peter Peng