A Perfect Substorm: ICME-driven Magnetic Activity Catches Galaxy 15 in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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[2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [2784] Magnetospheric Physics / Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, [2790] Magnetospheric Physics / Substorms, [7934] Space Weather / Impacts On Technological Systems

Scientific paper

At approximately 0825 UT on April 5, 2010, an ICME-driven shock encountered Earth's magnetosphere. The IMF, slightly southward since 0805 UT, turned more so, to an average value close to -15 nT, which was maintained for nearly an hour under high dynamic pressure conditions. Following a substorm growth phase, dipolarizations were observed at 0847 and 0903 UT by GOES West (11) in the midnight sector, at 0903 UT by three THEMIS spacecraft near X=-11, Y=-2 RE, and at about 0900 by GOES 14 near 2 MLT. Electron injections began at 0903 UT at the THEMIS spacecraft, while GOES 11 detected an increase in flux of energetic protons. A major dipolarization event at 0909 UT was observed at all of these spacecraft, and transferred magnetic flux from the vicinity of THEMIS to the inner magnetosphere, resulting in "overdipolarization" in the midnight sector. Extreme currents, more than 3 MA crossing the midnight sector, are inferred from ground magnetic perturbations of over 2000 nT, indicating this was an unusually strong substorm. Flux transfer associated with large electric fields observed at THEMIS (EY of 80 mV/m) is consistent with this increase in inner magnetospheric magnetic field. A second increase in ca. 1 MeV proton flux at this time led to a factor of over 10000 overall increase of this flux in the event. When the effects of this substorm reached synchronous orbit, the Galaxy 15 satellite was in eclipse when photoemission is not available to counter charging by the potentially high fluxes of energetic magnetospheric electrons that can occur during substorms. Galaxy 15 experienced a severe operational anomaly shortly after leaving eclipse and appears to have simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time when the “perfect” substorm occurred.

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