Glitches are caused by such events as fast moving electrons and ions inside the earths magnetic field. The effect of a glitch is a sudden increase in the voltage readout across the capacitor which causes a step (a ``glitch'') in the affected ramp. Glitch effects can last for a long time (glitches can have tails) and a glitch in one detector can affect other detectors in that detector array.
The pipeline attempts to remove glitches by ignoring the corrupted sample(s) and trying to construct two shorter slopes, one either side of the removed sample(s).
Figure 2 shows an example of a small glitch in the 24Hz ERD data . Note that the sets of two points with Bit values of around 2700-2800 are the result of the detector reset every second. The sample immediately after the two high points is also affected but appears okay due to the signal level.
Figure 2: An example of a small glitch seen in the ERD
Another type of upset has been observed, called `scan jumps'. These appear to be similar to glitches, but they affect an entire detector block. The symptoms are that each detector in a block suffers a sudden rise in sensitivity, that slowly decays with time. They usually affect only one scan of an up-down scan pair, and the recommended solution is to throw the affected scan portion away.