Spacecraft Charging Due To Energetic Electrons and Ions at Geosynchronous Altitudes
Name
JGR Space Physics - 2022 - Pervaiz - Spacecraft Charging Due To Energetic Electrons and Ions at Geosynchronous Altitudes.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
615.01 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b811510dcf3dd8b533f1802a425d064a
Author(s)
Pervaiz, Fareeha
Ali, S
Ali, M
Lai, Shu T
Date Issued
December 23, 2022
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Pervaiz, F., Ali, S., Ali, M., & Lai, S. T. (2023). Spacecraft charging due to energetic electrons and ions at geosynchronous altitudes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 128, e2022JA030642.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Satellites and spacecraft are usually exposed to space plasma disturbances, which vary in time at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), affecting the charging of spacecraft and weather on the Earth. The charging currents are often described by the current-balance equation (CBE) containing the electron-ion (incoming/outgoing) current density fluxes and their energy distributions. The power-law q-distribution is the most generalized distribution that essentially characterizes more pronounced energy tails and can be reduced to standard Maxwellian distribution for q → 1. Using the equilibrium currents, the CBE is solved both analytically and numerically to study spacecraft charging within the framework of Whittaker function. It is found that energetic electron and ion-induced currents significantly modify the charging phenomenon on the spacecraft's surface. Especially, ion-induced currents result in the delay of negative charging at critical electron thermal energy and enhance the magnitude of the total normalized current. Apart from CuBe surface material, numerical analysis is also carried out for silver and Aluminum to determine the magnitude of total normalized current and onset of negative charging. The present findings are consistent with spacecraft charging at GEO altitudes around the Earth.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Space Propulsion Laboratory
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ja030642
