Solar wind is concentrated by an electrostatic mirror, which reflects incoming ions from a parabolic mirror electrode, focusing them onto a backward-facing target. The mirror is tuned to focus solar wind ions in the mass 7-20 range, concentrating the fluence of important elements such as oxygen, which is the highest priority science objective, and also nitrogen, lithium, beryllium, boron and fluorine. This is necessary to ensure adequate signal-to-noise relative to background contamination levels.
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