Abstract: Significant spacecraft anomalies and failures began to occur in geosynchronous equatorial orbit in the early 1970s, just as space scientists were measuring the characteristics of the energetic plasmas associated with geomagnetic substorms, and discovering the charging of spacecraft the plasmas cause. The possibility that surface charging could induce anomalies was unexpected because 1,200 satellites had been launched and operated from 1950-1970 without apparent charging interactions. It took several years of ground testing, design analyses and assessments to uncover the general features of how charging and electrostatic discharge could cause the observed anomalies.

Bio: Bodeau received a bachelor’s in engineering from the University of Michigan and an MSEE degree in electrophysics from USC. He was a senior technical fellow at Boeing and chief technologist at Hughes Space and Communications, both in El Segundo. He has more than 35 years of experience in spacecraft design and space environmental interactions, and has authored more than 25 papers and presentations in IEEE, AIAA and AGU journals and specialty conferences. The holder of five U.S. patents, Bodeau was an invited speaker at NOAA’s Space Weather Week, the 2007 Space Weather Enterprise Forum, AGU’s 2012 Fall Session and NRO’s 2015 Spacecraft Anomaly and Failure Workshop, and was a contributing author to the 2008 U.S. National Research Council report “Severe Space Weather Events-Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts.”