Speaker
Ingmar Sandberg
(NOA)
Description
Activity: TRP
Contractor(s): NOA/IAASARS (GR), DHC(B), QinetiQ/Kallisto (UK)
Technical Officer: Hugh Evans
With the renewed interest in sighting satellites in the slot region the development of improved models is required. Traditionally the radiation environments for missions have been calculated for missions with lifetimes longer than a year using static models. These standard models do not provide accurate results for this region, where a statistical confidence level based approach may be more appropriate for supporting analysis of some radiation effects. In particular, the dynamics of the outer electron belt lend themselves to an analysis based on short term event identification and confidence levels.
This activity continues the programme of previous ESA radiation belt modelling activities, such as the TREND and RERMM activities that have looked at the production of long term radiation environment models using a mean case environment based on geomagnetic indices.
This activity produced models of the Earth’s radiation belts for the regions bounded by 1.2 ≤ L ≤ 4.5 REarth. The models provide the mean energetic particle fluxes for a given mission duration as determined by confidence level (probability that the fluxes will not be exceeded), and date and duration of the mission. In addition peak flux models were developed that provide the peak fluxes and duration over the mission for a given confidence level and phase of the solar cycle. The models energy ranges are commensurate with radiation effects calculations using the standard radiation environment effects tools.
