A New Model of Outer Belt Electrons for Dielectric Internal Charging (MOBE-DIC)

The outer electron belt poses a significant radiation hazard to spacecraft due to internal charging and dose effects. We present a new user-friendly model to characterise the worst-case environment built on data from the Giove-A spacecraft. We use instrument data based on a novel technique of direct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on nuclear science Vol. 62; no. 6; pp. 2767 - 2775
Main Authors Hands, Alex, Ryden, Keith, Underwood, Craig, Rodgers, David, Evans, Hugh
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.12.2015
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Data models
Dielectrics
Electrostatic discharges
Extraterrestrial measurements
Giove spacecraft
internal charging
Orbits
Space vehicles
trapped electron flux
Van Allen belts
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Summary:The outer electron belt poses a significant radiation hazard to spacecraft due to internal charging and dose effects. We present a new user-friendly model to characterise the worst-case environment built on data from the Giove-A spacecraft. We use instrument data based on a novel technique of direct charging current measurements, uncontaminated by protons and unaffected by dead-time, to create the model. The model provides integral or differential electron flux spectra with the following input parameters: percentile 90%, 99% or 100%; L-shell range 3-8; Magnetic Latitude ( B/B 0 ) range 1-100; Energy range 0.5-3 MeV. Comparisons with other models and independent data sets show that our "Model of Outer Belt Electrons for Dielectric Internal Charging" (MOBE-DIC) provides a sound worst-case specification for mission planners and design engineers. We find that, in medium Earth orbit particularly, MOBE-DIC indicates a harder electron spectrum than either AE9 or FLUMIC.
ISSN:0018-9499
1558-1578
DOI:10.1109/TNS.2015.2475134