Abstract
Satellites, crewed spacecraft and stations in low-Earth orbit (LEO) are very sensitive to atmospheric drag. A satellite’s lifetime and orbital tracking become increasingly inaccurate or uncertain during magnetic storms. Given the planned increase of government and private satellite presence in LEO, the need for accurate density predictions for collision avoidance and lifetime optimization, particularly during extreme events, has become an urgent matter and requires comprehensive international collaboration. Additionally, long-term solar activity models and historical data suggest that solar activity will significantly increase in the following years and decades. In this article, we briefly summarize the main achievements in the research of thermosphere response to extreme magnetic storms occurring particularly after the launching of many satellites with state-of-the-art accelerometers from which high-accuracy density can be determined. We find that the performance of an empirical model with data assimilation is higher than its performance without data assimilation during all extreme storm phases. We discuss how forecasting models can be improved by looking into two directions: first, to the past, by adapting historical extreme storm datasets for density predictions, and second, to the future, by facilitating the assimilation of large-scale thermosphere data sets that will be collected in future events. Therefore, this topic is relevant to the scientific community, government agencies that operate satellites, and the private sector with assets operating in LEO.
Highlights
During magnetic storms, large amounts of magnetospheric energy enters the ionosphere-thermosphere system at high latitudes through field-aligned currents (Prölss, 2011; Emmert, 2015)
Jacchia (1959) observed a strong decay of Sputnik 1958δ1 due to increased atmospheric drag forces. These pioneer observations led to the creation of many thermospheric empirical models throughout the decades, including the Jacchia (1970) model and subsequent series; the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter model series developed by Hedin (1987) and later improved by the Naval Research Laboratory to become the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter Extended model (Picone et al, 2002), and the Drag Temperature Model developed by Bruinsma (2015)
We will discuss results provided by the High Accuracy Satellite Drag Model (HASDM; Storz et al, 2005), and the improved version of the Jacchia model series described by Bowman et al (2008), JB2008
Summary
Large amounts of magnetospheric energy enters the ionosphere-thermosphere system at high latitudes through field-aligned currents (Prölss, 2011; Emmert, 2015). As we will discuss later, the need for accurate predictions of satellite orbital track during extreme magnetic storms is twofold: 1), the number of satellites in LEO has been and will be significantly increased; and 2), prediction models and historical data suggest solar activity will increase in the years and decades.
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