SPIS 5.1: An Innovative Approach for Spacecraft Plasma Modeling.

Version 5.1 of Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) has been recently released and is freely available for download to the whole community. It is the outcome of European Space Agency studies, SPIS-Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and SPIS-SCI, and several contributions from the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Network in Europe community members. It also relies on a Centre national d’études spatiales-sponsored activity to identify user needs of the industry for charging analysis. SPIS is now used in a much wider scope of applications than initially expected, from mission definition to in-flight scientific measurements analysis. The first version of a new modernized generation SPIS 5.1 aims to address these new issues and challenges in spacecraft surface interaction modeling, including spacecraft charging of commercial missions in Medium Earth Orbit/GEO. For this, SPIS 5.1 offers a simplified user interface and introduces new state-of-the-art software technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]