HSE Professors on How to Protect Spaceships
At the end of July, Professor Andrey Tyutnev of HSE’s Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM) became the only Russian presenter at the13th Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference organized in California under the auspices of NASA. Professor Tyutnev presented two reports prepared with colleagues from the Higher School of Economics and the Lavochkin Research and Production Association.
Tyutnev prepared the report ‘Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Radiation-induced Conductivity in Spacecraft Polymers’ together with Evgeny Pozhidaev and Vladimir Saenko from MIEM’s Laboratory of Space Vehicles and Systems' Functional Safety. The report was a culmination of fundamental research in the creation and analysis of the properties of space materials, in particular dielectric materials. The use of such materials on spacecrafts prevents the emergence of electrostatic discharge, which leads to onboard radio-electronic equipment failures.
The second report, ‘The Protection of the Spectr-R Spacecraft against ESD Effects Using the “Satellite-MIEM” Computer Code,’ was devoted to Spectr-R’s system of defense against the damaging effects of electrostatic discharge. The system was created by scientists from HSE and the Lavochkin Research and Production Association and has already been in operation for three years.
‘The surfaces of spacecraft located in geosynchronous and highly elliptical orbits are significantly charged (called ESD susceptibility) upon contact with space plasma, especially during geomagnetic storms and substorms. As a result, there is electromagnetic interference that leads to short-term disturbances and failures in radio-electronic hardware, as well as to a distortion in information and control signals, and in some cases to on-board devices being physically damaged. It is because of the ESD susceptibility of spacecraft that 24% of all equipment failures take place. Research and development is taking place in our research laboratory that is aimed at solving this problem,’ the Academic Supervisor of MIEM’s Laboratory of Space Vehicles and Systems' Functional Safety,Evgeny Pozhidaev, said.
An agreement in principle was reached with representatives from the French branch of the European Space Agency (CNES, Toulouse) and universities from the U.S. to conduct joint academic research in creating and studying the properties of space materials. Agreement was also reached on undergraduate and postgraduate student exchanges.
The achievements made by the team from MIEM’s Laboratory of Space Vehicles and Systems' Functional Safety were also presented at theCOSPAR Scientific Assembly, which took place in Moscow at the beginning of August and brought together leading specialists in the fields of astrophysics, space exploration, astrobiology and medicine. In a joint report with Lev Novikov of Moscow State University’s Skobeltsyn Institute for Nuclear Physics, HSE Professors Andrey Tyutnev and Vladimir Saenko described how polymer materials are modified for subsequent use in space under the conditions of the earth’s radiation belts.
Anastasia Chumak, HSE News Service
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