Towards a More Robust Spacecraft Charging Algorithm

Details Towards a More Robust Spacecraft Charging Algorithm Towards a More Robust Spacecraft Charging Algorithm

Nov 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998sct..conf..251m&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the 6th Spacecraft Charging Conference. November 2-6, 1998. AFRL Science Center, Hanscom AFB, MA, USA., p.251-255

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The NASCAP/GEO computer code, in use worldwide for simulation of spacecraft charging in geosynchronous orbit, is in need of improvement. We discuss the use of the boundary element method (BEM) to allow more flexible geometric specifications while providing more accurate surface electric fields, and the "Method of Patches" to provide more accurate and robust time integration. lating the volume potential structure is a poor, as well as inefficient, way to get surface electric fields, and this is one source of the problems that "kludges" are in place to overcome. We propose to use the Boundary Element Method (BEM) [Brebbia, 1981] to obtain more accurate surface electric fields, as well as to introduce more flexibility into the spacecraft definition. Time integration is NASCAP/GEO's second problem.The timescale for overall charging of a spacecraft is about four orders of magnitude faster than the timescale for differential charging. (This wide separation of timescales is often called "stiffness.") NASCAP/GEO uses a first-order implicit timestepping algorthm. However, the treatment is plagued with roundoff problems, leading to ad hoc fixes, and thence to poor representation of timescale. We propose to implement a variation of the "Method of Patches" [Brydon et al.,1998], in which the time-scales are separated and then solved exactly within less restrictive approximations than are currently used.

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