The effect of the prompt particle environment at L2 on optical CCDs for astronomy and astrophysics

The sources of the instrument background are both solar and galactic and if a probe is launched around the peak in the next solar cycle (2010), the possible false detection rate or the amount of data that could be lost during a mission must be determined. This paper presents measured data for a spacecraft in a geostationary orbit, specifically Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) data, and makes predictions of the flux and energy of the particle environment at L2. The solar and galactic cosmic ray background was determined by using the Cosmic Ray Effects on Micro-Electronics or CREME96 code. A comparison was then made between the GOES data and the output from the CREME96 code in order to make predictions about the L2 environment.