MIL-STD-1809 - Space environment for USAF space vehicles

This Standard addresses the natural unperturbed space environment. It is a compilation of the space environment data obtained from the most authoritative contemporary sources available at the time of compilation. This standard establishes the time-sensitive and orbit-sensitive parameters for the naturally occuring environments. The standard is intended to:
a) Ensure that space environmental interactions are considered and incorporated into the design of space systems and subsystems.
b) Provide a basis for evaluating the hardness of space systems and subsystems against the space environmental interactions.
Space vehicles operating in the space environment experience various effects caused by the vacuum, radiation, and particulate environments, as well as inertial effects. These effects are not specifically addressed in this standard, but should be included in the analyses of the effects of the environment on the space system, to the extent applicable.
This standard does not address effects of human operations in space such as orbiting space debris, transmitter radiations, fluid discharges from space vehicles, outgassing, or surface contamination. Neither does it address the interaction between the environment and an orbiting space vehicle, such as atomic oxygen burning of surface materials, surface glow, plasma waves generated by the presence of the space vehicle, space vehicle charging, or orbital dynamics. Nor, finally, does it address the effects of the environment on the space vehicle and subsystems, such as ionizing radiation damage, single event upsets in electronics, or backgrounds such as luminescence and Cerenkov radiation in optical materials. It does, however, provide the necessary environmental parameter data for calculations of space system performance as modified by the presence of these environmental elements.
Although this standard does not address the effects of human operations or the induced environment that is due to the interaction between the environment and a body in space, this should not be interpreted as indicating that these elements are not important. Their effects on a space system may be greater than that due to the natural environment. These elements vary with human activities, tend to be program peculiar, and, therefore, are simply not appropriate for inclusion in this standard. However, these elements should also be included in the analyses of the effects of the total environment on space systems, to the extent they are applicable.