Simulation and Analysis of Spacecraft Charging Using SPIS and NASCAP/GEO

Abstract

Spacecraft charging in GEO particularly concerns dielectric surfaces that may charge to significant voltages relative to spacecraft ground because of the space environment. Testing materials helps to define the level of risk and to maintain confidence in a spacecraft's immunity to damaging effects. Another factor defining the risk involves numerical simulation of spacecraft charging. Several tools aim to calculate surface charging, which is particularly hazardous in harsh environments produced by geomagnetic sub storms, where particles in the energy range of a few to hundreds of kiloelectronvolts are present. The main codes include Nascap-2k, Spacecraft plasma Interaction Software (SPIS), MUSCAT, and Coulomb-2. They use different numerical and sometimes physical models and cross checking their results is a necessary process to achieve better confidence in simulations performed by spacecraft prime manufacturers. The objective of this paper is to simulate different GEO spacecraft configurations with NASA Charging Analyzer Program at geosynchronous orbits (a 1980s to 1990s predecessor to Nascap-2k) and SPIS and to compare the results, both in terms of absolute and differential potentials. The first section concerns the SCATHA spacecraft. The second part of this paper compares efforts to model a modern telecom spacecraft. Finally, we conclude on the reliability of the simulations performed and possible areas for modeling improvement.