Did the Space Shuttle crew have to worry about the ionosphere? What relevant training or specific briefings did they receive?

Question

Comments below this answer tell us that the Space Shuttle always remained in Earth's atmosphere. When it visited the Hubble Space Telescope or the ISS or Mir it was still in the thermosphere and simultaneously the ionosphere.

Of course the crew of any spacecraft in LEO will need to understand the impact of atmospheric drag since it has a continuous and significant effect on orbit altitude and phasing, and spacecraft attitude and tilt of solar panels can have a significant impact on that.

Question: But what (if anything) were crew taught about the ionosphere and its interaction with the Space Shuttle? Did they have to worry about spacecraft charging? Were there interactions between the ionosphere and communications systems they needed to understand? Were they briefed before launch on the effect of solar activity and space weather on the ionosphere and how that could impact aspects of a mission?

companion question: Did the Space Shuttle crew have to worry about monatomic oxygen? — uhoh, Oct 06 '20 at 15:37
Can't recall much ever being said about this for any purposes beyond informational... — Digger, Oct 06 '20 at 18:46
I know that spacecraft charging was a concern in the 1960s when docking was being considered, and Wikipedia reports that the Gemini 8 thruster incident may have been due to a static discharge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_8#Thruster_incident:_cause_and_outcome — Dave Gremlin, Oct 06 '20 at 19:59
@DaveGremlin ISS has this gizmo and I'm assuming it mostly runs itself and generates a status report that crew and ground monitor. Shuttle is earlier and it's possible there were more uncertainties and/or surprises. There's one mission with these curious things and that might be a notable special case here and the basis of an answer (not sure), but what about all the others? Sadly though, there was no St. Elmo's fire. — uhoh, Oct 06 '20 at 21:45
The words 'ionosphere' or 'charging' don't appear in the Shuttle Crew Training Catalog. The phrase 'space weather' appears once, in the description of a class the crew got on the Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter. The context was expected radiation dosage. — Organic Marble, Oct 08 '20 at 23:32
Unfortunately a lot of the natural environments stuff was run out of Marshal so I can't be definitive. — Organic Marble, Oct 09 '20 at 00:15
I think between OrganicMarble's comments about training materials and @Digger's firsthand experience, that pretty much answers the question. — Tristan, Jan 18 '21 at 15:09
"the Space Shuttle always remained in Earth's atmosphere." Your question is flawed, because the Earth's atmosphere is detectable even from the Moon. https://newatlas.com/earth-atmosphere-geocorona-soho/58565/ Thus, the Apollo missions never left the Earth's atmosphere. — RonJohn, Jan 18 '21 at 20:54
I did a thing, just so the question has an answer. It's community wiki so I don't get credit. — Tristan, Jan 18 '21 at 20:55
@RonJohn there is context to that; see the question that sentence links to. There was a complaint under that question suggesting that ionosphere question might be off topic because it was an "atmospheric effect" so not about space exploration. I added this to emphasize that the Shuttle orbits in the atmosphere as a reminder that understanding the ionosphere is part of space exploration. How does this make this question "flawed" exactly? — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 00:48
At 190 miles, the atmospheric pressure is (according to http://www.endmemo.com/physics/pressurealtitude.php) 1.07E-19 atm. — RonJohn, Jan 19 '21 at 03:25
@RonJohn I don't think that's at all correct (but I could certainly be wrong!), I'll find a source for you in a minute... — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 03:27
@RonJohn I'll go with NASA's standard atmospheric model (found here) and this is likely for a quiet or average Sun. For periods of enhanced solar activity the pressure can be perhaps 10x higher. On the bottom of PDF page 70 at an altitude of 306 km the ratio $\rho / \rho_0$ is about $1.6 \times 10^{-11}$ You will find other tables that may vary by an order of magnitude or so, but it's not $10^{-19}$ at 190 miles or 306 km. — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 03:37
@RonJohn If it was as low as your link suggests satellites could orbit at 300 km for decades or centuries and we know that's not the case, they have months, perhaps a year if the Sun is quiet. — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 03:39
@RonJohn Ah I know what that site must have done. If you just take a simple scale height model and use 7 kilometers, $\exp(-305.78/7) = 1.07 \times 10^{-19}$. The assumptions break down once oxygen becomes monatomic, composition and temperatures change. Have a look at Why does Earth's atmospheric density have a big “knee” around 100 km? Is there a good analytical approximation? — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 03:44
@RonJohn now you've got me started :-) How many solar system bodies have “knees” in their atmospheres? — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 04:41
Let's never mind the fact that in these altitude ranges, it makes more sense to talk about atmospheric density than it does atmospheric pressure, as the mean free path of gas atoms and molecules is so long that the continuum assumption breaks down. — Tristan, Jan 19 '21 at 15:01
@Tristan I'm happy talking about density. Let's see, the only thing opposing gravity is regular collisions. Those collisions may be seconds apart (looks like kilometer MFP at 1E-10 atmospheric density at say 250 km, 300 m/s gives 3 seconds) so if the density is different between one collision and the next... Aha! Now I see what "...the continuum assumption breaks down" means! :-) — uhoh, Jan 19 '21 at 16:41
@Tristan I think I'm slowly starting to understand what's happening, so I've asked Still trying to understand “knee” in Earth's atmosphere >100 km; if pure Ne or Ar would it still be there when MFP exceeded scale height? — uhoh, Jan 21 '21 at 10:42
@Tristan and What is Direct Simulation Monte Carlo and why is it a good method for simulating spacecraft drag in VLEO? — uhoh, Feb 05 '21 at 05:00
@Digger I've just asked Do ISS crew worry about the ionosphere? Have hazards to EVAs or surface arcing and functional anomalies ever happened due to ionospheric charing? — uhoh, Feb 05 '21 at 05:25
@uhoh Can't comment on ISS operations with any authority. However, I do recall inducing an impressive (and, a bit scary) display of St. Elmo's fire on an F-16 canopy during a very dark, very electrically active night over the Iberian peninsula several decades ago. However, I was "only" about 20,000' high, well below the ionosphere... — Digger, Feb 06 '21 at 16:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 18 '21 at 20:54

Combining a couple comments into an answer -- community wiki as none of this is my contribution.

Per user OrganicMarble, who worked in training for the shuttle:

The words 'ionosphere' or 'charging' don't appear in the Shuttle Crew Training Catalog. The phrase 'space weather' appears once, in the description of a class the crew got on the Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter. The context was expected radiation dosage. – Organic Marble Oct 8 '20 at 23:32

Per user Digger, who actually flew on the shuttle:

Can't recall much ever being said about this for any purposes beyond informational... – Digger Oct 6 '20 at 18:46

Did the Space Shuttle crew have to worry about the ionosphere? What relevant training or specific briefings did they receive?

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