Mixed flow ionospheric aerodynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how mixed ion species in the ionosphere affect satellite drag, revealing complex inter-species interactions that influence wake structures and challenge existing predictive models.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-species drag model based on plasma sheath simulations, highlighting the importance of inter-species effects in ionospheric aerodynamics.

Findings

Small H+ concentrations disrupt wake structures and increase drag.

Heavier O+ ions have minimal impact on H+ dominated flows.

The proposed model overpredicts drag, indicating complex inter-species interactions.

Abstract

The increasingly congested near earth environment requires accurate orbital modelling to prevent collision events that threaten access to space infrastructure. Ionospheric aerodynamics are the largest non-conservative source of orbital perturbations. Work done by Brown et al provided a prediction method for drag forces on charged bodies in low earth orbit based on applying approximations of single species flows to representative plasma simulations. Recent work on mixed species plasma sheaths motivates investigation of this assumption. Mixed species plasma flows over charged bodies with representative LEO conditions were simulated, focusing on orbital motion limited O$^+$ dominated flows, and sheath limited H$^+$ dominated flows. The significance of small concentrations of different ion species was analysed in terms of aerodynamic effects on the body. Introduction of small concentrations of H$^+$ into a flow dominated by O$^+$ molecules showed significant disruptions to the wake structure, coupled with an increase in drag coefficient for a satellite in that flow. Introducing heavier O$^+$ molecules into a sheath dominated H$^+$ flow found little disruption to the wake structure. A multi-species drag model was proposed, building on work in Brown et al. This model was found to qualitatively describe changes in wake structure, but consistently over predicted drag coefficients. This finding suggests that the influence of mixed species flows on ionospheric aerodynamics involves significant contributions from inter-species interactions not described adequately by considering the separate species as either separate flows, or one flow with adjusted parameters.