Electrical anomalies on spacecraft due to hypervelocity impacts

One of the main challenges in satellite design is dealing with the threat from the space environment. Numerous spacecraft anomalies are reported on a regular basis and in most of these cases, it is extremely difficult to diagnose the cause of these anomalies/failures. Hypervelocity impacts from meteoroids and orbital debris has recently emerged as possible catalysts for electrical anomalies observed on spacecraft. In this paper, we present a case study and statistical analysis of hypervelocity impact-induced electrical anomalies. We present data showing anomalous currents in the power distribution system on the JASON-1 satellite following a hypervelocity impact. A statistical analysis is carried out using 2413 anomalies from the Ascend satellite anomaly database and 5033 anomalies from the anomaly database maintained in the 1990s by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). We find that there is no correlation between the flux of shower meteoroids and incidence of anomalies. For geostationary satellites, we use NASA´s Meteoroid Engineering Model to calculate the flux of sporadic meteoroids at different locations in the orbit and find that the incidence rate of anomalies is significantly higher in regions with high average meteoroid flux. These results serve as a strong indicator of electrical damage caused by electromagnetic emissions from meteoroid impacts.