The ASTROD I charging simulation and disturbances due to solar energetic particles at 0.5 AU

Abstract

The electrostatic charging of ASTROD I test mass (the Astrodynamical Space Test of Relativity using Optical Devices I) will disturb its pure geodesic motion due to spurious Coulomb and Lorentz forces. The three main disturbances associated with the charging are the acceleration noise of the test mass, the coupling between the test mass and the spacecraft, the appearance of unwanted coherent Fourier components in the measurement bandwidth. By implementing the same geometry and physics models in our previous work, a positive charging rate of 9369e+/s for the solar energetic particles (SEPs) event on October 19th 1989 is predicted. Based on these charging rates, we calculated the acceleration noise and stiffness associated with charging. We also compared the acceleration noises arising from Coulomb and Lorentz effects using different discharge characteristics. Although the noise due to charging exceeds the ASTROD I budget for the two events at 0.5AU, it can be suppressed through continuous discharging. In addition to Monte Carlo uncertainty, an error of ±30% in the net charging rates was added to account for uncertainties in the primaries spectra, physics and geometry models.