TIME EVOLUTION OF ION CONTAMINANT CLOUDS AT GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT

The exploitation of geosynchronous orbit will bring with it perturbations of the ambient plasma environment by man‐made effluents. In this paper, the creation, ionization, and subsequent transport of an artificially produced contaminant cloud in the immediate vicinity of a spacecraft at geosynchronous orbit will be examined. The theory predicts the probability of observing xenon from the SCATHA (P78‐2) SC4 xenon beam experiment by GEOS II. Estimates will also be presented for the ionization cloud expected from projected systems such as large space stations (air leakage) or a solar power satellite (argon thrusters). This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright.