The design and development of an Electrostatic Charge Generator (ECG) presented in this article is a mechanism for deployment of drag-wires of Ultra-thin Wires Drag Enhancement System (UWDES). The UWDES is a hybrid de-orbiting system being developed for nano/micro-satellites in low/medium altitude Earth orbits. The ECG on-board the UWDES accomplishes electrostatic charging of drag wires on command. Here, it is preferred to charge the drag wires positively as altitudes of target spacecraft, which lie in the inner Van Allen radiation belt, are dominant of positive charges. For this purpose, the spacecraft bus voltage is stepped up to high potentials of 10 kV - 15 kV DC. This is supplied to an anode-cathode setup constituting the charge transfer mechanism, which works on the principle of field electron emission, to remove electrons from the wires, thereby charging it positively. The emitted electrons are collected and supplied to the spacecraft ground. The ECG and its related circuitry are designed for implementation on a circuit board, which will be housed within a hermetically sealed case of the UWDES. The design, simulation, construction and testing of ECG for experimental validation is reported here. We find that the high voltage generation system consisting of a DC - DC voltage multiplier circuit with AC link provides a robust method to achieve the desired high potentials. A grid like structure for anode and needle like structure for cathode is designed for the field emission to facilitate charge transfer. Alongside, the regulation and distribution will be taken care by an on-board electron gun and the spacecraft ground.
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