Estimating Satellite Orbital Drag During Historical Magnetic Superstorms

Abstract

Understanding extreme space weather events is of paramount importance in efforts to protect technological systems in space and on the ground. Particularly in the thermosphere, the subsequent extreme magnetic storms can pose serious threats to low-Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft by intensifying errors in orbit predictions. Extreme magnetic storms (minimum Dst ≤-250 nT) are extremely rare: only 7 events occurred during the era of spacecraft with high-level accelerometers such as CHAMP (CHAllenge Mini-satellite Payload) and GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate experiment), and none with minimum Dst ≤-500 nT, here termed magnetic superstorms. Therefore, current knowledge of thermospheric mass density response to superstorms is very limited. Thus, in order to advance this knowledge, four known magnetic superstorms in history, i.e., events occurring before CHAMPs and GRACEs commission times, with complete datasets, are used to empirically estimate density enhancements and subsequent orbital drag. The November 2003 magnetic storm (minimum Dst =-422 nT), the most extreme event observed by both satellites, is used as the benchmark event. Results show that, as expected, orbital degradation is more severe for the most intense storms. Additionally, results clearly point out that the time duration of the storm is strongly associated with storm-time orbital drag effects, being as important as or even more important than storm intensity itself. The most extreme storm-time decays during CHAMP/GRACE-like sample satellite orbits estimated for the March 1989 magnetic superstorm show that long-lasting superstorms can have highly detrimental consequences for the orbital dynamics of satellites in LEO.

The Current State and Future Directions of Modeling Thermosphere Density Enhancements During Extreme Magnetic Storms

“…Each reference provides the respective Dst-like index data for further investigations. For example, Oliveira et al (2020) used the Dst-like data for the first 3 events mentioned above along with real Dst data for the March 1989 storm (Allen et al, 1989;Boteler, 2019) to show with JB2008 that, by comparison, long-lasting and less intense superstorms can induce more severe drag effects than short-lasting and more intense superstorms. Further investigations are needed here, as we have yet the unexplored events occurring in September 1859 (Tsurutani et al, 2003;Hayakawa et al, 2019b), February 1872 (Silverman, 2008;Hayakawa et al, 2018), and March 1946(Hayakawa et al, 2020a.…”

Recreating the Horizontal Magnetic Field at Colaba During the Carrington Event With Geospace Simulations

“…The Dst of a storm event can be used as an input for calculating the drag effects on satellites during geomagnetic storms (Emmert, 2015;Prölss, 2011;Zesta & Huang, 2016). Oliveira et al (2020) used recreated Dst estimates for different large-scale historical superstorms, and calculated the magnitude of satellite drag effects. Given the unusual nature of our Carrington event simulation (where the calculated Dst is particularly not a good proxy for the ring current), we believe that our Carrington event simulation is not suitable for these calculations.…”

Correlating the interplanetary factors to distinguish extreme and major geomagnetic storms

“…In order to qualitatively understand further differences between extreme and major storms, the time duration of the storm main phase was compared with minimum Dst values. Notably, the time duration of storms is a critical factor in their impact on thermosphere heating and satellite drag (Oliveira et al., 2020). In Figure 1b, we provide the context needed to not only understand potential differences between extreme and major storms on thermosphere heating and satellite drag, but also elucidates the broader implications of Figure 1a.…”