In this study, statistical techniques based on existing data on major Indexes of space environment are used as a computational method to verify the design compliance of Atomic Oxygen(ATOX) erosion effects of polymer film materials in LEO satellite.
The goal of this study is to more accurately predict the atomic oxygen erosion of satellites to be launched and operated in the future, to confirm the design conformity and the design margin.
For this goal, I try to estimate the range of important solar activity indexes affecting ATOX with the statistical techniques in selection of coated materials of LEO satellite in development and the compliance evaluation of alternative materials. And the ATOX erosion of the coated materials of satellite components is predicted by using the ATOX flux accumulation calculation method on the actual satellite orbital plane(ram direction) is performed through the simulated mission duration(calculated in seconds unit), altitude and orbital information of each satellite and each attitude information in each mission mode.
The prediction calculating method for ATOX erosion will be applied to the compliance evaluation of the design of the solar cell coated materials of the satellite which is being developed recently. I select the major indexes of the solar activity that have the greatest effect on ATOX and identify the causes of ATOX by solar activity and the effect of ATOX on energy level and satellite materials. the solar activity indexes, which are known to have the greatest effects on ATOX, are calculated by using statistical modeling based on past measurement database and I propose methods to predict the value. And I present the predicted values of ATOX Fluence of the satellite based on the predicted solar activity indexes in previous and compare the results with those used in the previous design. Based on the predicted calculated ATOX Fluence value, the ATOX erosions are predicted and calculated by applying it to the coated materials for the total mission periods of the satellite in development. I compare the calculated values of the prediction method applied in this study against the robust design values applied in the existed satellite program and I confirmed that the suggested methods are optimized in conclusion.
The predicted value of the material erosion predicted by ATOX Flux in this study is very different from the value of “Maximum Worst Case Estimation Method” which was used in previous satellite programs and it is confirmed that it is a quantitative and optimized prediction technique close to actual value, it is expected that this can be widely used for confirmation of the design margin of maximum ATOX erosion including the safety factor proposed by the overseas manufacturer and confirmation of design compliance of the polymer coated materials for satellite.
I hope that a more precisely and enhanced estimated cycling models of the solar activity from the planed launch point of the satellite in development to the expected end of mission period will be designed, through the comparison and verification with the solar activity forecasting models which used the advanced space agency(NASA, ESA, etc.), and the optimized forecast of ATOX Fluence by using the most fitted prediction formula during the mission period will be derived and utilized in next study in the future.