Cosmic Ray System

Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS, or Cosmic Ray System) is an instrument aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft of the NASA Voyager program, and it is an experiment to detect cosmic rays. The CRS includes a High-Energy Telescope System (HETS), Low-Energy Telescope System (LETS), and The Electron Telescope (TET). It is designed to detect energetic particles and some the requirements were for the instrument to be reliable and to have enough charge resolution. It can also detect the energetic particles like protons from the Galaxy or Earth's Sun. As of 2017, CRS is one of the active remaining instruments on both Voyager spacecraft, and it is described by as being able to detect electrons from 3-110 MeV and cosmic ray nuclei 1-500 MeV/n. All three systems used solid-state detectors. CRS is one of the five fields and particle experiments on each spacecraft, and one of the goals is to gain a deeper understanding of the solar wind. Other objects of study including electrons and nuclei from planetary magnetospheres and from outside the solar system.

Areas of original study for this investigation:

High-Energy Telescope System:

Low-Energy Telescope System:

Electron Telescope (TET):

The TET consists of eight solid state detectors with different thicknesses of tungsten between each detector. The detectors and tungsten layers are stacked one on top of each other. The tungsten layers range from 0.56 mm to 2.34 mm thick and function as absorbers. Each TET solid state detector has an area of 4.5 cm² and is 3 mm thick.

The P.I. is Prof. Edward C. Stone, Jr.

In 1977 the spectra of He, C, N, O, and Ne with "4-124 MeV per nucleon (for O)" during the solar minimum was measured using the CRS instrument on the Voyagers.

In the early 1980s, the CRS detected charged particles around Saturn. It detected a 0.43 million volt flux of protons as it reach Saturn's magnetosphere. In the 1980s the CRS data from both Voyagers was used to determine the abundances of energetic particles from the Sun and additional information. Another area studied in the 1980s using CRS data was variation in Galactic cosmic rays in the outer Heliosphere

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