The impact of space weather on satellites operation in near-Earth space environment

Solar activity causes dynamic and highly variable conditions in the ionosphere-thermosphere (IT) system that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems, and services that rely on them such as communications, navigation, meteorology, defence, etc. The understanding of this space weather condition and its mitigation is critically important for satellites design and operation in ionospheric plasma environment in which they are designed to function. Among other known impacts on satellites system, space weather can cause accelerated orbit decay due to atmospheric drag, sporadic and unexplainable errors in functions of sensitive parts, degradation of critical properties of structural materials, jeopardy of flight worthiness, catastrophic failure, and transient and terminal health hazard to both onboard passengers and astronauts. In this paper we review some space weather-induced satellite anomalies including the progress we made in the studies related to enhanced atmospheric drag and consequent accelerated satellites orbit decay in low Eart orbit (LEO).