A satellite Charging Assessment Tool (SatCAT)

Our purpose is to give government decision makers as well as satellite industry operators and designers a tool for assessing and mitigating space weather effects on satellites. Satellite engineers employ a variety of strategies to safeguard their assets from space weather but avoiding all impacts is not feasible. One consequence is that satellites quickly become electrically charged. Resultant breakdowns and discharges may damage solar arrays, cause false commands, and damage components. What drives the need for space weather tools now and a new market for services is the expansion and evolution of the industry to emerging areas such as satellite internet. Our two-step objective is to 1) engage in deep-dives with industry leading operators to uniquely develop our understanding of their specifific needs and 2) build a prototype tool that connects an advanced global radiation environment model and measured data with engineering codes and methods used to defifine hazards to specifific satellite structures in real time. Our value proposition is this: For operators, designers, and decision makers who need to maintain mission operations and resolve unavoidable satellite anomalies, our product is a tool that summarizes space weather impacts to your assets so you can take the right mitigating action.