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Spacecraft Charging Effects Led to the Galaxy-15 Communication Satellite Failure
发布日期:2010-05-13 17:09:53

Recently, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (IntelSat) announced: At nine forty-eight of the world time April 5th, the  Galaxy -15 satellite which belongs to the organization had failed and  the related business had been transferred to the Galaxy -12 satellite.  The monitoring data of GOES-11 satellite which belongs to the U.S.  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Figure 2) showed  that the enhancement of spatial high energy electron, which started  from the end of March. In comparison to the usual, the high energy  electron intensity had increased by two orders of magnitude. Thus the  scientists believed that the most likely reason led to the Galaxy -15  satellite’s failure was spacecraft charging and discharging effects.

 Our laboratory recently made progress in this effect study. Some kinds of satellite components sample were designed as shown in the Figure 3----the ungrounded conductor and multi-layer  structure, both observed discharge pulse (Fig. 4) in a simulated  geosynchronous orbit electron environment, and more study are under way.