Best Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Daytime Spacecraft Charging Index

Recently, the debate on what is the best daytime Geosynchronous Earth Orbit spacecraft charging index has beenreopened. In this paper, the conclusions of one of the recent papers on the subject are verified by comparing Nascap-2k results with charging and fluxes measured on the Spacecraft Charging at the High Altitudes, Intelsat, DefenseSatellite Communications System, and Los Alamos National Laboratory Geosynchronous Earth Orbit satellites. Inaddition, a refined measure of charging is presented as the total thermal electron flux above a certainminimumenergythat is well above the second crossover point in secondary electron emission. The use of this type of index is justified bycorrelations between Nascap-2k simulation results and total fluxes above a range of energies. The best minimumenergy to use is determined for spacecraft of different design and surface materials. Finally, the optimumGeosynchronous Earth Orbit daytime spacecraft charging index is obtained, and its use for predicting and resolvingspacecraft anomalies in real time is justified.