Analysis of electromagnetic and electrostatic effects of particle impacts on spacecraft |
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Authors: | Michael C Kelley Stephanie Pancoast Sigrid Close Zhenzhen Wang |
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Institution: | 1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, 318 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA;2. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305, USA;3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA |
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Abstract: | Particle impacts on spacecraft can cause considerable damage, even leading to complete failure. A theory for the resulting vehicle potential changes and the electromagnetic radiation from impact-induced plasma has been published by Close et al. (2010). Here we compare this theory to impacts registered by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrumentation on the Cassini spacecraft. We study both low-velocity (16 km/s) large particles (2.6 μm radius) detected in Saturn’s rings and high-velocity (450 km/s) small particles (1 nm radius) in the solar wind. The agreement with the theory is quite good. We also apply these results to earth orbit and conclude that both Electrostatic Discharge and Electromagnetic Pulse radiation are likely and could lead to spacecraft failure. |
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