LIBRARIES Active Control of Particulate Contamination for a LEO Spacecraft Environment

Spacecraft may actively modify their environment by the release of particulate contamination. Particles may also enter the near-spacecraft environment when spacecraft enter clouds of dust or debris in space. This contamination may seriously hamper the function of systems on board the craft. Two regimes of particulate contamination will be examined. The first is that of particulate contamination in the vicinity of a spacecraft. This may interfere substantially with functions such as electromagnetic observations in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. Second is the tendency of some particles to accumulate on surfaces, such as radiators or solar arrays, and degrade their performance. The background and the problem statement will be discussed in the first chapter. A computational model is developed to observe the behavior of particulate contamination in the spacecraft environment. This model self-consistently monitors the forces and charge on the particle. Three methods of actively controlling the particles are introduced to the simulation. These methods are cold gas jets, electric field manipulatio