The cosmic dust aggregation experiment CODAG

For the simulation of the first stage of preplanetary dust aggregation, we developed the cosmic dust aggregation experiment (CODAG). With CODAG, we in tend to study the aggregational behaviour of a cloud of micron-sized dust p articles due to Brownian motion of the grains. For a realistic simulation o f the processes in the young solar system, the dust grains have to be dispe rsed in a rarefied gas so that mutual collisions are ballistic. Fast sedime ntation of the grains in the Earth's gravitational field leads to unrealist ic collision velocities and to a rapid loss of particles to the container w alls. Therefore, CODAG was designed to work in a microgravity environment. In this paper, we present an overview of the experimental design of CODAG w hich was recently flown in a Get Away Special container during the STS-95 m ission.