Development of Internal Charging Measurement System for Dielectric Material of Spacecraft

摘要

Spacecraft charging occurs in space environment. There are two types of spacecraft charging. "Surface Charging" and "Internal Charging." The former has been investigated for about 30 years. Until now, however, the latter has not been studied deeply enough and, as far as we know, measurement of internal charging in the spacecraft has not been made yet. Under these circumstances, we tried to develop equipment for measurement of internal charging in space environment, applying PIPWP(Piezo-electric Induced Pressure Wave Propagation) method, which enables us to measure electric charge distribution in dielectrics.