A new property of spacecraft surface materials, the threshold temperature for high-voltage charging, is defined. A table of threshold temperatures, calculated for various spacecraft surface materials, is presented. This property explains and unifies several recently-identified phenomena affecting spacecraft charging, including: the existence of multiple floating potentials for certain spacecraft surfaces in certain external environments; sensitivity effects in the numerical prediction of spacecraft potentials; sudden jumps in both observed and simulated spacecraft potentials in slowly-varying environments; and observed threshold effects in high-voltage charging. In addition, knowledge of the threshold temperature for proposed or existing surface materials provides a simple, effective way to evaluate their charging behavior when exposed to various space environments. (Author)
Threshold Temperature Effect in High-Voltage Spacecraft Charging
1983
16 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
Wiley | 2018
|NTIS | 1989
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