87th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 16 January 2007: 4:30 PM
Space science inputs to spacecraft design and anomaly resolution for high altitude spacecraft.
210A (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center)
Thomas Paul O'Brien III, The Aerospace Corporation, Chantilly, VA; and J. Mazur and C. Tschan
The space science community has the capability to approximately specify and forecast a variety of physical quantities. This paper addresses the question of which of those quantities are needed as inputs to spacecraft design and anomaly resolution for high altitude spacecraft. For design, the primary types of input are climatological: mean environment, worst case environment, errors on those estimates. For anomaly resolution, the inputs are specifications of conditions local to the vehicle at and leading up to the time of the anomaly. In both cases, the quantities of interest are closely tied to environmental hazards, such as (1) surface charging, (2) internal charging, (3) single event effects, and (4) total dose. The primary environmental causes of these are (1) 10s-100s keV electrons, (2) MeV and near MeV electrons, (3) 10s-100s MeV protons and heavier nuclei, and (4) all of the above. This paper provides details for the relevant energy ranges, species, and timescales for each hazard, while also discussing caveats associated with providing automated systems for anomaly situational awareness.

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