The effects of hyper-velocity dust-particle impacts on the LOFT Silicon Drift Detectors

Solid-state detectors that operate in orbit are required to withstand harsh space environment conditions. Among the various phenomena able to damage the sensors, X-ray detectors are subjected to impacts of orbital debris and micrometeoroids whenever, to be sensitive to low energy photons, they need to be ``directly'' exposed to the sky. The LOFT mission, proposed for the M3 class opportunity of the ESA Cosmic Vision, has a very-large sensitive area (greater than 10 m2) made of Silicon Drift Detectors (SDD). Moreover, the satellite includes an X-ray Wide-Field Monitor based on the same SDD detectors. Here we present the results of a test campaign at the Cosmic Dust Accelerator Facility at MPIK in Heidelberg aimed at the space qualification of the detectors with respect to this phenomenon.