Specification and initial forecast of keV electrons at GEO and MEO related to surface charging

A series of anomalies at GEO have been attributed to electrons of energy below 100 keV, responsible for surface charging. The process at play is charge deposition on covering insulating surfaces and is directly linked to the space environment at a time scale of a few tens of seconds. Even though modern satellites benefited from the analysis of past flight anomalies and losses, it appears that surface charging remains a source of problems. Accurate specification of the space environment at different orbits is of a key importance. We present the operational model for low energy (< 200 keV) electrons in the inner magnetosphere, Inner Magnetosphere Particle Transport and Acceleration model (IMPTAM). This model has been operating online since March 2013 (http://citrine.engin.umich.edu/imptam/ and imptam.fmi.fi) and it is driven by the real time solar wind and IMF parameters and by the real time Dst index. The presented model provides the low energy electron flux at all L-shells and at all satellite orbits, when necessary. IMPTAM is used to simulate the fluxes of low energy electrons inside the Earth's magnetosphere at the time of severe events measured on LANL satellites at GEO. There is no easy way to say what will be the flux of keV electrons at MEO when surface charging events are detected at GEO than to use the model. When an anomaly occurs, the radiation environment may be more extreme than that given by the specification models used for design. The existence of an operational model, validated and run in real-time is extremely important for determining the possible reason for that anomaly.