Energetic Proton Maps for the South Atlantic Anomaly

Details Energetic Proton Maps for the South Atlantic Anomaly Energetic Proton Maps for the South Atlantic Anomaly

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsa53a1359g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SA53A-1359

Physics

7984 Space Radiation Environment

Scientific paper

Despite efforts to design space systems to survive the space radiation environment, modern spacecraft can still experience high rates of anomalies due to single event effects (SEEs) arising from cosmic rays and high- energy radiation belt protons. SEEs may range from nuisance effects requiring operator intervention to debilitating effects which lead to functional or total spacecraft loss. In many cases SEEs create high background counts which sensors unusable during passage through the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). Operators who control affected space vehicles need to know how best to minimize the risk of anomalies which in many cases simply means knowing, with a high degree of accuracy, when and where to turn systems on and off. Until recently the most readily accessible and useable means to do this was by using proton intensity maps derived from the NASA AP-8 radiation belt climatology model. However, it is well known both from the data and geomagnetic theory that as a result of the variations in the Earth's internal magnetic field the location of the energetic proton belts has changed significantly since the model was made in 1970. The predominantly westward drift of the SAA is approximately 0.3 degrees/year and can lead to large inaccuracies in the prediction of dose rates for LEO satellites if models are not updated. An improved set of maps were constructed in 1998 from data taken by the Air Force's APEX and CRRES satellites during the epoch 1990- 1996. We present here a new set of maps for the epoch 2000-2006 based on data from the Compact Environment Anomaly Sensor (CEASE) onboard the Tri-Service Experiment-5 (TSX-5) satellite in a 400 km x 1600 km, 69 degree inclination orbit. Maps for > 10 Mev, > 25 MeV, > 40 MeV and > 70 MeV protons will be shown and compared to those for earlier epochs. Estimates of the energy spectra as a function of altitude from 400km to 1650 km, an interval spanning the range where the controlling factor in the dynamics changes from the neutral density to the global magnetic field, will also be given.

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