1.3.

1 The high atmosphere

and transition to space
Space Mission Design and Operations
Prof. Claude Nicollier

Credits: Oxford University Press, 1999

Chemical composition of the atmosphere

● 78 % of nitrogen, N2
● 21 % of oxygen, 02
● 1 % of argon, Ar
● < 0.1 % of CO2, H20 and others

● Atomic oxygen is the most abundant

element in the thermosphere and
beyond (> 80 km altitude).

Space Mission Design and Operations

Variation in pressure and temperature with altitude
On the ground, the pressure is 1013 mb with a temperature of 288 K,
or 15°C, which is the average temperature on the surface of the Earth.

In the first layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, the temperature

decreases
At the tropopause, approximately, 9 to 15 km above the surface of the Earth,
depending on the latitude, the temperature is approximately 218 K, or -55°C.

The temperature increases in the layer 40-50 km altitude due to the formation
of ozone. The ozone is created by a dissociation of the oxygen and
combination with another oxygen to form ozone (O3).

In the mesosphere, about 50 km altitude, the temperature decreases.

Above 80-90 km altitude, in the thermosphere, the temperature increases
because of the ionization of mainly oxygen and some nitrogen atoms.

100 km altitude is what the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

is considering as the limit to space.

Credits: Oxford University

Press, 1999
Space Mission Design and Operations
Slow transition to vacuum

The density goes down with the altitude: every time the
altitude increases by 5.5 km, the density is divided by two.

The pressure decreases together with the density.

The temperature decreases, all the way to the tropopause,

to about -55°C.
Then the temperature remains constant in value until the
formation of ozone at 40-50 km altitude, where it increases.

The speed of sound, being directly correlated with

temperature follow the same evolution than the temperature
and becomes constant when it reaches the tropopause.

Credits: Aerospaceweb.org
Space Mission Design and Operations
Microgravity
● Very low acceleration level in LEO.
● Typically 10-6 g at 300 km.
● Slightly disturbed “Free fall” trajectories.
Microgravity is the term used to characterize the very low
acceleration level encountered inside a spacecraft in LEO
(typically 10-6g at 300 km altitude).
It is the condition of an object or a person in free fall or
appearing to be weightless – where the gravity is very
small.
It is wrongly called zero-g or weightlessness but in fact
there are always perturbing forces acting on this object.
The major perturbing force, when in orbit around the Earth,
is the atmospheric drag.
There are other perturbing factors, like the solar radiation
pressure, the flux of particles of the solar wind, that would
cause a slight deviation from a pure zero-g condition, even
for very high altitude.
Space Mission Design and Operations
1.3.2 Transparency of the atmosphere and light effects

Space Mission Design and Operations

Prof. Claude Nicollier

Credits: NASA
 Transparency windows in the atmosphere
The atmosphere is opaque to radiations except
Chandra X ray Hubble visible Spitzer IR a window in the visible part of the spectrum,
around 0.5 microns, or 5,000 angstroms.
Telescopes on the ground observe and study
objects in the sky in this visible window.
There is a large radio window, for radio
telescopes studying objects in the large
wavelengths, from about 1 cm to 10 m
wavelengths.
Celestial objects emitting in ultraviolet, X-ray,
gamma rays and infrared can be observed only
from space with satellites, like Chandra X-Ray
Observatory or Infrared Spitzer Telescope.

The Hubble Space Telescope is covering the visible part of the spectrum, a
small window in the near ultraviolet and the near infrared. Being outside of the Credits: ESA, Hubble, F. Granato
Earth atmosphere, HST has a higher resolution than ground-based telescopes. Space Mission Design and Operations
Thickness of the atmosphere

The thickness of the atmosphere

corresponds to the thin blue line.

During the orbital day, when the

Sun is above the horizon from
LEO, the sky is black: the eyes
are not sensitive to the lights of
planets and stars in the sky.

As soon as the Sun sets, within a

very short time, typically 20s,
stars become visible.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Airglow
This picture was taken in 1996, on STS-75.
The cargo bay of the Shuttle is visible. The
vertical stabilizer appears here horizontally,
because the plane of the wings is
perpendicular to the velocity vector.

The thin line of green light is the airglow at

about 100 km altitude.
The airglow is due to photoionization of the
oxygen atom and de-excitation which produces
a luminescence, mainly due to the oxygen,
somewhat also to nitrogen and the radical OH.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Airglow

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations
Airglow

The airglow is especially bright when the Moon

is above the horizon.

There are thunderstorms northeast of Texas,

and a rare phenomenon called "sprites," which
is a vertical emission of red lights above
thunderstorms.

Credits: NASA
Space Mission Design and Operations