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Abstract:
The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) spacecraft is a JAXA mission to Mars
and its moons Phobos and Deimos. MMX will be equipped with the
Circum-Martian Dust Monitor (CMDM) which is a newly developed
light-weight (650 g) large area (1m2) dust impact detector. Cometary
meteoroid streams (also referred to as trails) exist along the orbits of
comets, forming fine structures of the interplanetary dust cloud. The
streams consist predominantly of the largest cometary particles (with
sizes of approximately 100 mu m to 1 cm) which are ejected at low speeds
and remain very close to the comet orbit for several revolutions around
the Sun. The Interplanetary Meteoroid Environment for eXploration (IMEX)
dust streams in space model is a new and recently published universal
model for cometary meteoroid streams in the inner Solar System. We use
IMEX to study the detection conditions of cometary dust stream particles
with CMDM during the MMX mission in the time period 2024 to 2028. The
model predicts traverses of 12 cometary meteoroid streams with fluxes of
100 mu m and bigger particles of at least 10(-3) m(-2) day-1 during a
total time period of approximately 90 days. The highest flux of
0.15m(-2) day(-1)is predicted for comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff in October
2026. With its large detection area and high sensitivity CMDM will be
able to detect cometary meteoroid streams en route to Phobos. Our
simulation results for the Mars orbital phase of MMX also predict the
occurrence of meteor showers in the Martian atmosphere which may be
observable from the Martian surface with cameras on board landers or
rovers. Finally, the IMEX model can be used to study the impact hazards
imposed by meteoroid impacts onto large-area spacecraft structures that
will be particularly necessary for crewed deep space missions.
