Contamination-free sounding rocket Langmuir probe

A technique for removing surface contaminants from a sounding rocket spheri cal Langmuir probe is presented. Contamination layers present on probe surf aces can skew the collected data, resulting in the incorrect determination of plasma parameters. Despite following the usual probe cleaning techniques that are used prior to a launch, the probe surface can become coated with layers of adsorbed neutral gas in less than a second when exposed to atmosp here. The laboratory tests reported here show that by heating the probe fro m the interior using a small halogen lamp, adsorbed neutral particles can b e removed from the probe surface, allowing accurate plasma parameter measur ements to be made. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.