Considerably less well understood are the effects that rocket effluents have on the lower ionosphere, specifically the D&E regions. These regions are substantially more difficult to treat both because of the increased importance of collisions and because the neutral chemistry may be more important than the ion chemistry. This question has yet to be addressed in detail. Another question that has thus far received only preliminary attention is the effect that the use of argon ions (Ar+) as a propellant for orbit transfer from LEO to GEO will have on the upper atmosphere. Chiu, Ching, and Luhmann (Ref. 3.12) suggest that the large number of Ar+ ions required will "profoundly alter the composition and dynamics of the ionosphere and magnetosphere." This remark is based upon their preliminary finding that, since Ar+ has a very long charge-exchange lifetime in the natural plasmasphere, it will remain trapped for periods as long as 10 to 10 hours, during which time it can transfer its approximately 500 electon volts of energy via coulomb interactions to the ambient electrons. They estimate that about 80X of the Ar+ ions will be released inot the plasmasphere (contained within about four Earth radii, while GEO is at about 6.6 Earth radii), and that the resulting Ar + ion concentration will substantially exceed the electron concentration at all altitudes where Ar+ ions are released. Fig. 3.7 shows the relative positions and the general shapes of the plasmasphere and magnetosphere (the sun is off the picture to the left). 3.4.1.2 Other Effects While in GEO, the satellite will be a source of visible light (reflected sunlight) as well as a source of infrared radiation, since a large portion of the incident solar energy will be rejected as waste heat. Douglas et al. (Ref. 3.12) from Maya Development Corporation have estimated that the reflected sunlight will cause the satellite to be the brightest object in the night sky next to the moon. Their calculations show that 100 satellites together will produce about 1/10 the light of a full moon.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==