Understanding extreme space weather events is of paramount importance in efforts to protect technological systems in space and on the ground. Particularly in the thermosphere, the subsequent extreme magnetic storms can pose serious threats to low Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft by intensifying errors in orbit predictions. Extreme magnetic storms (minimum Dst ≤ −250 nT) are extremely rare: Only seven events occurred during the era of spacecraft with high‐level accelerometers such as CHAMP (CHAllenge Minisatellite Payload) and GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate experiment) and none with minimum Dst ≤ −500 nT, here termed magnetic superstorms. Therefore, current knowledge of thermospheric mass density response to superstorms is very limited. Thus, in order to advance this knowledge, four known magnetic superstorms in history, that is, events occurring before CHAMP's and GRACE's commission times, with complete data sets, are used to empirically estimate density enhancements and subsequent orbital drag. The November 2003 magnetic storm (minimum Dst = −422 nT), the most extreme event observed by both satellites, is used as the benchmark event. Results show that, as expected, orbital degradation is more severe for the most intense storms. Additionally, results clearly point out that the time duration of the storm is strongly associated with storm time orbital drag effects, being as important as or even more important than storm intensity itself. The most extreme storm time decays during CHAMP/GRACE‐like sample satellite orbits estimated for the March 1989 magnetic superstorm show that long‐lasting superstorms can have highly detrimental consequences for the orbital dynamics of satellites in LEO.

中文翻译：

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估算历史磁暴期间的卫星轨道阻力

在保护太空和地面技术系统的努力中，了解极端太空天气事件至关重要。特别是在热层中，随后的极端电磁风暴会通过加剧轨道预测中的错误，对低地球轨道（LEO）航天器构成严重威胁。至尊磁暴（最小奔st ≤  - 250 NT）是极为罕见的：只有七个事件与高层飞船的时期发生的加速度计，如CHAMP（挑战小卫星有效载荷）和GRACE（重力恢复和气候试验）和无最小DST ≤  -500 nT，这里称为磁暴。因此，目前关于热暴对超级风暴的质量密度响应的知识非常有限。因此，为了提高这一知识，使用历史上的四个已知的磁性超级风暴，即在CHAMP和GRACE的委托时间之前发生的事件以及完整的数据集，可以凭经验估计密度的增强和随后的轨道阻力。2003年11月的磁暴（最低Dst  =  -422 nT），这是两个卫星观测到的最极端事件，被用作基准事件。结果表明，正如预期的那样，对于最强烈的风暴，轨道退化更为严重。此外，结果清楚地指出，风暴的持续时间与风暴时间的轨道阻力效应密切相关，与风暴强度本身同样重要，甚至更为重要。在1989年3月磁超暴估计的类似CHAMP / GRACE样卫星轨道期间，最极端的暴风雨时间衰减表明，持续的超级暴风雨可能对LEO中的卫星轨道动力学产生极大的不利影响。