Current collection and discharges on high voltage solar array for space use in plasma

摘要

The authors investigated the interaction of high voltage solar array with plasma simulating low Earth orbit environment. They measured the plasma-coupling currents of DC-voltage biased solar arrays in argon plasma in a large space chamber. At positive bias voltage the plasm-coupling current remarkably increased with increase of bias voltage above 100 V. On the other hand, the current at negative bias voltage was smaller than that at positive bias voltage but discharges occurred at about -200 to 300 V.