Impact of Space Environment on Geostationary Meteorological Satellite Data Outage

Abstract

AbstractImpact of space environment changes on geostationary meteorological satellite services, such as data outage, incomplete imagery, or quality degradation were investigated using event logs of Himawari‐8 and Meteosat (MET‐7 and MET‐8) in 2015–2017. The event logs show that such failures were caused by anomalies on spacecraft and in ground system half each. On Himawari‐8, a total of 11 incomplete imagery occurred due to spacecraft anomaly, and among them about 45% (5 anomalies) occurred during energetic electron enhancement and about 9% (1 anomaly) occurred during energetic proton enhancement. In cases of Meteosat, a total of 84 service alerts occurred due to spacecraft anomaly, and among them 35% (29 anomalies) occurred during electron enhancement and 7% (6 anomalies) occurred during both proton and electron enhancement. On the basis of statistical analysis, it is found that the probability of spacecraft anomaly occurrence markedly increases when electron fluence exceeds a threshold. The probability of anomaly is less than 10% when the 1‐MeV electron fluence is less than 104 (/cm2 sr eV), whereas it increases to more than 20% above the fluence. Thresholds are also found for electron fluences at other energies from 200 keV to 1.5 MeV. This study clarifies that changes in the space environment, particularly electron fluence enhancement affect geostationary meteorological satellite services.