The Air Force Research Laboratory is currently studying the space environment from space and has also been developing a new device to simulate it in a laboratory.
Both of these activities could be used by the Space Force to track and predict the well-being of satellites.
The Kirtland Air Force Base Space Vehicles Directorate of AFRLs Space Weapons Directorate, N.M. is currently building a multi-energy electron generator that emits radiation in dozens different wavelengths simultaneously.
Miles Bengtson was a postdoctoral scientist in the directorate. He invented the electron device as a graduate student at University of Colorado Boulder. Bengtson was brought aboard by Spacecraft Charging and Instrument Calibration Lab to bring the electron device to operational status. An AFRL release.
Satellites can be damaged by radiation from the electrons.
The problem with labs creating such radiation for experiments is that electron sources are monoenergetic, Bengtson explained in the release. They only emit electrons at a single energy or wavelength, while the space environment contains electrons spread across all energies simultaneously.
The new testing environment could facilitate faster adoption of new materials and better experiments to study materials, electric charging, and other aspects that are affected by the space environment.
Ryan Hoffman, a physicist who heads the Spacecraft Charging and Instrument Calibration Lab, stated in the release that two prototypes of the new electronic device have been tested and that the advanced prototype that is being constructed will be very close at a fully operational model.
Space Study from the Ground
The Skywave Technology Laboratory is gaining a better grasp of the space environment on its 72-acre site at Kirtland.
Two antennas are used in the labs. One is a tower with a measuring device, and the other is a long array consisting of poles that can be used to create a high frequency radar. Both antennas emit electromagnetic transmissions into Earth’s plasma ionosphere, propagating them and scattering themoff to the subatomic particles.
In an email reply to a query from Air Force Magazine, Todd Parris, chief, Space Vehicles Directorates Geospace Environment Impacts and Application Branch, stated that the plasma’s state, including its density and other disturbances, can cause interference with space communications.
The Skywave lab was officially opened in April. It will be primarily focused on radio impacts on space services, Parris stated.
Parris confirmed that the Space Force could benefit from knowledge of the space environment to distinguish between an electronic attack against a satellite and its natural effects. Understanding environmental electromagnetic interference is usually the first step in attributing the effects on a spacecraftruling in, or ruling out, the space environment,” he said.
