Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The Munich Dust Counter (MDC) is a scientific experiment on board of the MUSES-A mission of Japan. It is the result of a cooperation between the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan and the Chair of Astronautics of the Technische Universität München (TUM) of Germany. The MDC is an impact ionization detector designed to determine mass and velocity of cosmic dust. Here a short overview over the MUSES-A mission is given to show the measurement situation of the MDC experiment. The measurement principle of the instrument together with a discussion of the scientific objectives and the design of the experiment is summarized.