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Spacecraft-Plasma Interaction Modelling of Future Missions to Jupiter

As an orbiter cruising to Jupiter will encounter different plasma environments, variety of spacecraft surface charging is expected. This surface potential can lead to inaccurate and wrong in-situ plasma measurements of on-board sensors, which explain the interest in simulating the charging.In this thesis the spacecraft-plasma interactions for a future mission to Jupiter are modelled with the help of the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction System, taking the case of a Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO) and a Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO) as an archetype for a future mission.It is shown that in solar wind at Earth and Jupiter, spacecraft potentials of about 8 V for the JEO, and 10 V to 11 V for the JGO are expected. Furthermore, at a distance of 15 Jupiter radii from Jupiter, the JGO is expected to charge to an electric potential of 2 V, except in the planetary shadow, where it will charge to a high negative potential of -40 V. Moreover, close to the orbit of Callisto, JGO will charge to 12 V in the sun and to 4.6 V in eclipse, due to a high secondary electron emission yield. / <p>Validerat; 20120115 (anonymous)</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:ltu-48367
Date January 2012
CreatorsRudolph, Tobias
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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