DEX in near Earth orbit in light of Venus Orbiter Dust Experiment

Study of IDP has been of interest to researchers for few decades, primarily after missions like Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini, Stardust and observations of comet, Hale-Bopp. The data from experiment like GORID have extended our knowledge about dust surrounding Earth. Similar attempts were made for understanding IDP at planets like Mars and Venus, however, in-situ measurements of IDP are awaited. We have proposed VODEX as well as MODEX for measuring dust around Venus and Mars, respectively and the Dust EXperiment (DEX), a replica of the same, was recently flown in near-Earth orbit at ~ 350 km using POEM of PSLV C-58 (XPoSat) mission. DEX was found working successfully in space and it has also shown presence of IDP in near-Earth orbit during its operation from 1^st January to 9^th February 2024. Here we report, developmental aspects of DEX, observational details and results. The measured time-resolved IDP flux is from ~ 10^-3-10^-2 # m^-2 s^-1 and the flux during entire observational period is 6.46 × 10^-3 [2.95 × 10^-3, 9.97 × 10^-3] # m^-2 s^-1 from direct detection of IDP in near-Earth environment. The experiment was useful to demonstrate working of dust detector and also, it can provide new measurements of IDP entering Earth.