A summary is presented of basic lightning characteristics/criteria applicable to current and future aerospace vehicles. The paper provides estimates on the probability of occurrence of a 200 kA peak lightning return current, should lightning strike an aerospace vehicle in various operational phases, i.e., roll-out, on-pad, launch, reenter/land, and return-to-launch site. A literature search was conducted for previous work concerning occurrence and measurement of peak lighting currents, modeling, and estimating the probabilities of launch vehicles/objects being struck by lightning. This paper presents a summary of these results.
Lightning Strike Peak Current Probabilities as Related to Space Shuttle Operations
2000
14 pages
Report
No indication
English
Meteorological Data Collection, Analysis, & Weather , Physical Meteorology , Space Launch Vehicles & Support Equipment , Space Safety , Lightning , Atmospheric electricity , Aerospace vehicles , Launch vehicles , Launch dates , Spacecraft launching , Space transportation system flights , Space shuttles , Electric current , Current distribution , Probability theory