Welcome to this edition of The Intelligence Brief… This week, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have uncovered the phenomenon behind sudden spacecraft failures in orbit, long a mystery to engineers and mission planners. Over the decades, several occurrences of unexplained failure of electronics onboard satellites orbiting above Earth have led to speculations about what electrical forces could account for the unusual incidents. Spacecraft Environment DischargesThe phenomena behind these incidents, known as spacecraft environment discharges (SEDs), involve short, sudden electrical breakdowns that, when they erupt, can quickly cause significant damage to the electronics and communications systems onboard a range of spacecraft, including satellites. “We’ve long known that these SEDs exist,” said Los Alamos scientist Amitabh Nag, the lead author of a study that details the team’s research. “We haven’t understood the relationship between the electrons in the space environment and SEDs,” Nag elaborated.