"Space environment is a branch of astronautics, aerospace engineering and space physics that seeks to understand and address conditions existing in space that affect the design and operation of spacecraft."
The effects of the space environment on spacecraft, including radiation, temperature extremes, and micrometeoroids.
Orbital Mechanics: This field deals with the motion of celestial objects in space around each other, including the Earth, the Moon, and other planets.
Orbital Mechanics of Small Satellites: This subfield deals with the motion of small satellites, like CubeSats, in Earth's orbit.
Power and Energy Management: This field deals with providing power to spacecraft and managing that power efficiently.
Propulsion Systems: This field deals with providing the necessary thrust to spacecraft to maneuver and maintain orbit.
Attitude Control and Pointing: This field deals with maintaining the orientation of the spacecraft and pointing it in the right direction.
Thermal Control: This field deals with maintaining the temperature of spacecraft components within functional limits.
Radiation Effects: This field deals with the impact of space radiation on spacecraft and human occupants, including ionizing radiation, cosmic radiation, and solar flares.
Onboard Data Handling and Communications: This field deals with the management of data onboard the spacecraft and the ability to communicate with ground-based systems.
Spacecraft Design and Configuration: This field deals with the design and configuration of spacecraft systems, including structural design, system integration, and testing.
Launch Vehicle Selection and Integration: This field deals with selecting the appropriate launch vehicle for the spacecraft and integrating it with the spacecraft system.
Operations and Mission Control: This field deals with the operations and management of the spacecraft throughout its mission, including monitoring, control, and troubleshooting.
Environmental Testing: This field deals with the testing of spacecraft components and systems under simulated space environmental conditions.
Spacecraft Materials and Processes: This field deals with the materials and processes used in spacecraft construction and the evaluation of their performance in the space environment.
Space Debris Mitigation: This field deals with the mitigation of space debris and the impact of space debris on spacecraft.
Planetary Protection: This field deals with the prevention of contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth organisms and the prevention of contamination of Earth by extraterrestrial organisms.
Regulatory and Legal Environment: This field deals with the regulatory and legal environment for spacecraft design, operation, and use.
Atmospheric conditions: The conditions of the Earth's atmosphere such as temperature, pressure, density and composition.
Solar radiation: The electromagnetic energy that is emitted from the sun, including light, heat, and ultraviolet rays.
Galactic cosmic rays: High-energy particles that originate from outside the solar system.
Particle radiation: Charged particles that are emitted during solar flares or other events.
Microgravity: The condition of zero gravity or weightlessness experienced by objects in orbit.
Impact events: The risk of being hit by small debris or meteoroids in space.
Thermal changes: The extreme changes in temperature experienced by spacecraft due to their position relative to the sun and the different materials used in constructing the spacecraft.
High vacuum: The lack of air and pressure experienced in space, which can result in issues with material off-gassing and outgassing.
Plasma: The fourth state of matter that spacecraft can experience in specific regions of space, such as in the ionosphere.
Magnetic field variations: The fluctuation of the Earth's magnetic field and other magnetic fields encountered in space.
Space debris: Human-made debris and litter left in space that can pose a danger to spacecraft.
Environmental contamination: The exposure of spacecraft to pollutants from other spacecraft or other sources in space.
Communications and tracking limitations: The difficulties associated with maintaining communication and tracking of spacecraft over large distances in space.
Space weather: The effects of solar storms, solar flares, and other phenomena that can potentially harm spacecraft and their electronics.
Human error: The risk of human error in the design and operation of spacecraft, which can result in accidents and other mishaps.
"A related subject, space weather, deals with dynamic processes in the solar-terrestrial system that can give rise to effects on spacecraft, but that can also affect the atmosphere, ionosphere and geomagnetic field, giving rise to several other kinds of effects on human technologies."
"Radiation in space usually comes from three main sources: The Van Allen radiation belts, Solar proton events and solar energetic particles, and Galactic cosmic rays."
"For long-duration missions, the high doses of radiation can damage electronic components and solar cells."
"During solar energetic events (solar flares and coronal mass ejections) particles can be accelerated to very high energies and can reach the Earth in times as short as 30 minutes (but usually take some hours). These particles are mainly protons and heavier ions that can cause radiation damage, disruption to logic circuits, and even hazards to astronauts."
"In near-Earth orbits, the Earth's geomagnetic field screens spacecraft from a large part of these hazards - a process called geomagnetic shielding."
"Space debris and meteoroids can impact spacecraft at high speeds, causing mechanical or electrical damage."
"The average speed of space debris is 10 km/s (22,000 mph; 36,000 km/h) while the average speed of meteoroids is much greater."
"Mechanical damage from debris impacts have been studied through space missions including LDEF, which had over 20,000 documented impacts through its 5.7-year mission."
"Spacecraft electrostatic charging is caused by the hot plasma environment around the Earth."
"As a result, discharges can occur and are known to be the source of many spacecraft anomalies."
"Solutions devised by scientists and engineers include, but are not limited to, spacecraft shielding, special 'hardening' of electronic systems, various collision detection systems."
"Evaluation of effects during spacecraft design includes application of various models of the environment, including radiation belt models, spacecraft-plasma interaction models, and atmospheric models to predict drag effects encountered in lower orbits and during reentry."
"The field often overlaps with the disciplines of astrophysics, atmospheric science, space physics, and geophysics, albeit usually with an emphasis on application."
"The United States government maintains a Space Weather Prediction Center at Boulder, Colorado. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."
"Space weather effects on Earth can include ionospheric storms, temporary decreases in ozone densities, disruption to radio communication, to GPS signals and submarine positioning."
"Disruption to radio communication...[is an effect of space weather]."
"Some scientists also theorize links between sunspot activity and ice ages."
"Crewed missions to return to the Moon or to travel to Mars will have to deal with the major problems presented by solar particle events to radiation safety, in addition to the important contribution to doses from the low-level background cosmic rays."
"The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). SWPC is one of the National Weather Service's (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)."