Section: Software

SPARCS

Participants : Christophe Besse, Thierry Goudon [ correspondant ] , Nicolas Vauchelet, Ingrid Violet, Saja Borghol.

SPARCS is the code developped by Thales Alenia Space for the simulation of the charge phenomena the spacecrafts are subject to. The current version of the code, according to the PhD thesis of O. Chanrion and M. Chane-Yook performed in collaboration with the team Caiman at Sophia Antipolis, is specialized to geostationary atmospheres. The model consists in the stationary Vlasov-Poisson system, but where instationary effects are taken into account with the boundary condition for the electric field. We participate, in particular through the post doc of N. Vauchelet, to the elaboration of an improved version of the code which includes parallization optimized procedures, the modeling of the natural difference of potential between different dielectric surfaces of the spacecraft, as well as the possible presence of devices emitting charged particles. We aim at developing new versions designed for LEO and PEO atmospheres.