The Space Environment and Its Effects on Space Systems

This textbook will help students and professionals understand the space environment and its impacts on spacecraft design, engineering, and performance. While the primary emphasis of the book is the Earth's environment and its effects on spacecraft, it also addresses the extraterrestrial environment and the effects of radiation on humans in space.

The book begins with an introduction to the history of spacecraft failures, risk management, reliability and quality assurance techniques, and parts reliability. It goes on to provide an overview of the structure of the Sun; the structure, origin, and models of the geomagnetic field; the gravitational field of the Earth; Earth's magnetosphere and radiation environment; neutral environment including fundamentals of the kinetic theory of gases; variation of pressure with altitude and hypoxia of humans; electromagnetic propagation; the effect of atomic oxygen on materials; plasma surrounding the Earth; transport and effects of photon and charged particle radiation on electronics and tissue; spacecraft contamination; techniques to mitigate debris impact; and heat transfer and thermal control of spacecraft.

An appendix provides important astrodynamic constants and parameters of the celestial bodies in the solar system. Problem sets and examples are included, and a solution manual is available for instructors.

This textbook will help students and professionals understand the space environment and its impacts on spacecraft design, engineering, and performance. While the primary emphasis of the book is on the Earth's environment and its effects on spacecraft, it also addresses the extraterrestrial environment and the effects of radiation on humans in space.

Vincent L. Pisacane is the Robert A. Heinlein Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the United States Naval Academy. He was formerly at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he served as head of the Space Department, Assistant Director for Research and Exploratory Development, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in Medicine. At Hopkins, he holds a joint appointment in the Biomedical Engineering Department in the School of Medicine and teaches in the part-time graduate program of the School of Engineering. He is a graduate of Drexel University with a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering and of Michigan State University with a masters degree in Applied Mechanics and Mathematics and a PhD in Applied Mechanics and Physics. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Electrical Engineering Department at Hopkins. He has been the principal investigator of several NASA grants and the author of a book on Space Systems Engineering and of innumerable publications and presentations on space systems.