Italian spring accelerometer (ISA) a high sensitive accelerometer for “BepiColombo†ESA CORNERSTONE

The targets of the ESA CORNERSTONE mission to Mercury ``BepiColombo are concerned with both planetary and magnetospheric physics and to test some aspects of the general relativity. A payload devoted to a set of experiments named radio science is located within one of the three proposed modules, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO). In particular, a high sensitivity accelerometer (amin<10-9g/sqrt(Hz) in the range 10-4-10-1Hz) will measure the inertial acceleration acting on the MPO. Such data, together with tracking data are used to evaluate the purely gravitational trajectory of the MPO, transforming it to a virtual drag-free satellite system. The ISA accelerometer, considered for this mission, is a well-studied instrument developed at the Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), with the financial support of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). A prototype of such an instrument was constructed, matching the requirements of the radio science experiment. Results of the study concerning the use of ISA in the BepiColombo mission are reported here, particular care being devoted to the description of the instrument and to its sensitivity and thermal stabilisation.