SPIS 5.1: An Innovative Approach for Spacecraft Plasma Modeling

Thiébault, B.; Jeanty-Ruard, Benjamin; Souquet, Pierre Jean; Forest, Julien; Matéo‐Vélez, Jean-Charles; Sarrailh, Pierre; Rodgers, D.; Hilgers, A.; Cipriani, F.; Payan, D.; Balcon, N.

doi:10.1109/tps.2015.2425300

Cited by 33 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In this study, we use the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS, Thiébault et al, 2013) to model the influence of the spacecraft potential on the low-energy ion measurements made by RPC-ICA. We investigate the distortion of the FOV for different ion energies, with the aim of finding an energy level above which the measurements are not distorted.…”

Section: Citationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Influence of Spacecraft Charging on Low‐Energy Ion Measurements Made by RPC‐ICA on Rosetta

Bergman

Wieser

et al. 2020

JGR Space Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spacecraft charging is problematic for low-energy plasma measurements. The charged particles are attracted to or repelled from the charged spacecraft, affecting both the energy and direction of travel of the particles. The Ion Composition Analyzer (RPC-ICA) on board the Rosetta spacecraft is suffering from this effect. RPC-ICA was measuring positive ions in the vicinity of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, covering an energy range of a few eV/q to 40 keV/q. The low-energy part of the data is, however, heavily distorted by the negatively charged spacecraft. In this study we use the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software to model the influence of the spacecraft potential on the ion trajectories and the corresponding distortion of the field of view (FOV) of the instrument. The results show that the measurements are not significantly distorted when the ion energy corresponds to at least twice the spacecraft potential. Below this energy the FOV is often heavily distorted, but the distortion differs between different viewing directions. Generally, ions entering the instrument close to the aperture plane are less affected than those entering with extreme elevation angles.Plain Language Summary The Rosetta spacecraft followed comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 2 years, providing data giving new insights into the nature of comets. The Ion Composition Analyzer (RPC-ICA) on board the spacecraft measures positive ions in the vicinity of the comet. The instrument can measure low-energy ions, which play an important part in the processes taking place in this environment. To fully understand the environment around the comet, we have to understand these low-energy ions. Unfortunately, this part of the RPC-ICA data is distorted by the spacecraft potential. A spacecraft in space interacts with the surrounding environment, which charges the spacecraft surface to a positive or negative potential. Rosetta was commonly charged to a negative potential throughout the mission, which means that the positive ions measured by RPC-ICA were attracted to the spacecraft. Consequently, both the energy and the travel direction of the ions changed before detection. We investigate how the low-energy ions measured by RPC-ICA have been affected by the spacecraft potential. We use the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software to model these effects. The results give us a lower energy limit above which we can trust the measurements and show that some parts of the instrument are more heavily affected than others.

show abstract

Section: Citationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SPIS is a simulation tool developed to study the interactions between a spacecraft and the surrounding plasma (Thiébault et al, 2013). It determines the spacecraft potential and the resulting potential field around the spacecraft, given a certain plasma environment and spacecraft characteristics.…”

Section: Spismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Spacecraft Charging on Low‐Energy Ion Measurements Made by RPC‐ICA on Rosetta

Bergman

Wieser

et al. 2020

JGR Space Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They are currently based on the data obtained in the 1970's and 1980's (Purvis et al, 1984), especially onboard the SCATHA and ATS-6 satellites. The low energy electron and proton distribution functions measured at GEO were fitted by double Maxwellian distribution functions to facilitate their use by engineering tools such as computational models whose modern versions are SPIS (Roussel et al, 2012;Thiebault et al, 2016), NASCAP-2 k (Mandell et al, 2006) and MUSCAT (Muranaka et al, 2008).…”

Section: 1002/2017sw001689mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spacecraft surface charging induced by severe environments at geosynchronous orbit

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Severe and extreme surface charging on geosynchronous spacecraft is examined through the analysis of 16 years of data from particles detectors on‐board the Los Alamos National Laboratory spacecraft. Analysis shows that high spacecraft frame potentials are correlated with 10 to 50 keV electron fluxes, especially when these fluxes exceed 1 × 108 cm−2 s−1 sr−1. Four criteria have been used to select severe environments: 1) large flux of electrons with energies above 10 keV, 2) large fluxes of electrons with energies below 50 keV and above 200 keV, 3) large flux of electrons with energies below 50 keV and low flux with energies above 200 keV, and 4) long periods of time with a spacecraft potential below ‐ 5 kV. They occur preferentially during either geomagnetic storms or intense isolated substorms, during the declining phase of the solar cycle, during equinox seasons and close to midnight local time. The set of anomalies reported in Choi et al. (2011) is concomitant with a new database constructed from these events. The worst‐case environments exceed the spacecraft design guidelines by up to a factor of 10 for energies below 10 keV. They are fitted with triple Maxwellian distributions in order to facilitate their use by spacecraft designers as alternative conditions for the assessment of worst‐case surface charging.

show abstract

“…We use the spacecraft charging analysis software of SPIS 7,8) which is based on the 3D Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method. The SPIS project aims at developing a software toolkit for spacecraft-plasma interactions modelling.…”

Section: Spismentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Worst GEO Plasma Environmental Models for Spacecraft Surface Charging by SPIS

Nakamura

Kawachi

et al. 2018

AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY JAPAN

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assessment of the worst plasma environment for spacecraft surface charging in the geosynchronous Earth orbits (GEO) is important for spacecraft designs and operations, because it could cause spacecraft anomalies due to surface charging with resultant discharging arcs. The differential charging potential of spacecraft surfaces is considered to generate the harmful discharging arcs. There was no common standard of the worst GEO plasma environment for analysis of differential surface charging to prevent and mitigate the anomalies. Therefore in order to determine a new International Organization for Standardization (ISO) document for the purpose, a round-robin simulation was performed using the NASCAP-2k and MUSCAT. We perform surface charging simulations by Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) as same as the round-robin simulation and evaluate the worst GEO plasma environmental models showing the detailed results. This study will contribute to a revision of the ISO document and also apply spacecraft charging risk estimations as space weather forecast.

show abstract

SPIS 5.1: An Innovative Approach for Spacecraft Plasma Modeling

Cited by 33 publications

References 9 publications

The Influence of Spacecraft Charging on Low‐Energy Ion Measurements Made by RPC‐ICA on Rosetta

The Influence of Spacecraft Charging on Low‐Energy Ion Measurements Made by RPC‐ICA on Rosetta

Spacecraft surface charging induced by severe environments at geosynchronous orbit

Assessment of Worst GEO Plasma Environmental Models for Spacecraft Surface Charging by SPIS

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About