Effects
The South Atlantic Anomaly is of great significance to astronomical satellites and other spacecraft that orbit the Earth at several hundred kilometers altitude; these orbits take satellites through the anomaly periodically, exposing them to several minutes of strong radiation, caused by the trapped protons in the inner Van Allen belt. The International Space Station, orbiting with an inclination of 51.6°, requires extra shielding to deal with this problem. The Hubble Space Telescope does not take observations while passing through the SAA. Astronauts are also affected by this region which is said to be the cause of peculiar 'shooting stars' (phosphenes) seen in the visual field of astronauts. Passing through the South Atlantic Anomaly is thought to be the reason for the early failures of the Globalstar network's satellites.
The PAMELA experiment, while passing through the SAA, detected antiproton levels that were orders of magnitude higher than those expected from normal particle decay. This suggests the Van Allen belt confines antiparticles produced by the interaction of the Earth's upper atmosphere with cosmic rays.
NASA has reported that modern laptops have crashed when space shuttle flights passed through the anomaly, and the SpaceX CRS-1 Dragon spacecraft attached to the International Space Station during October 2012 experienced a transient problem as it passed through.
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