APPLICATION OF DIRECT SIMULATION MONTE-CARLO TO SATELLITE CONTAMINATION STUDIES

A novel method is presented to estimate contaminant levels around spac ecraft and satellites of arbitrarily complex geometry. The method uses a three-dimensional direct simulation Monte Carlo algorithm to charac terize the contaminant cloud surrounding the space platform, and a com puter-assisted design preprocessor to define the space-platform geomet ry. The method is applied to the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite t o estimate the contaminant flux incident on the optics of the halogen occultation experiment (HALOE) telescope. Results are presented in ter ms of contaminant cloud structure, molecular velocity distribution at HALOE aperture, and code performance.