Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Aerospace Engineering

In this thesis, the particle charging on low earth Orbit satellites were computed due to space weather severe situations. Three linked problems were solved: solar wind-magnetosphere problem with the magnetosphere-ionosphere potential coupled boundary, F-layer of ionization of the ionosphere and spacecraft charging estimation. Results were compared to NASA community coordinated modeling center three dimensional BATS-R-US magnetosphere model and schunk ionosphere model. Having solved the three linked sub-problems, the spacecraft charging was estimated by computing the excess voltage due to the increase in solar wind speed. The excess charging results provided necessary information to satellite shielding design procedure. A secondary objective of the work was to investigate the extent to which Mathematica® software and modern GPU CUDA® technologies may be used to accelerate the solution of the developed model

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