Abstract:

This paper studies the charging/discharging effect of the high-voltage solar arrays of the Chinese space station in the low Earth orbit plasma environment experimentally, and the electrostatic discharge and secondary discharge have been measured in the lab. The results indicate that the biased-voltage of the solar arrays electrostatic discharge is -70〖KG*9〗V. The electrostatic discharge of the high-voltage solar arrays is observed to be more frequent when the biased-voltage decreases, and it easily occurs when the solar arrays in a higher density plasma environment. The secondary discharge has been measured when the biased-voltage is -100V and the string-voltage is 80V.

Key words: Low Earth orbit plasma, High voltage solar arrays, Electrostatic discharge, Biased voltage, Secondary discharge