Modelling of the electric propulsion induced plasma environment on SMART-1

SMART-1 will be the first spacecraft using a Hall thruster as a primary propulsion system. Part of its mission is to investigate the influence of operating such a thruster with the rest of the spacecraft. Due to collision processes in the plasma, slow ions are produced which are able to leave the primary ion beam. Two instruments in SMART-1 will investigate these slow ions, the Electric Propulsion Diagnostic Package (EPDP) and the Spacecraft Potential, Electron and Dust Experiment (SPEDE). A 3D Particle-In-Cell plasmasimulation has been developed to predict what the instruments will measure and to get estimate the global distribution of these slow ions around the spacecraft. Therefore, virtual instruments were developed to resemble the space experiments as close as possible. Priliminary results show no significant interaction with the rest of the spacecraft and that all obtained data is well within the instrument range.