The Atypical Normal Potential Gradient Arcing on Solar Arrays

Dale Ferguson

US Air force Research Laboratory

Dr. Dale Ferguson is the Lead for Spacecraft Charging Science and Technology at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has been working in the field for over 35 years and has over 250 papers and presentations in his portfolio.  In 2013 he was awarded the Guenter Loeser Memorial Lectureship Award for his contributions on spacecraft charging.  He has been Principal Investigator on experiments on Space Shuttle, ISS, and the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner Rover.

Abstract

Most spacecraft arcing studies have been of the typical inverted gradient arcing, since geomagnetic substorms tend to charge spacecraft very negative of dielectric surfaces.  However, normal gradient arcing, where the... [ view full abstract ]

Authors

  1. Dale Ferguson (US Air force Research Laboratory)
  2. Ryan Hoffmann (US Air force Research Laboratory)
  3. Daniel Engelhart (National Research Council)
  4. Elena Plis (Assurance Technology Corp.)

Topic Areas

Observations , Plasma , Solar Array Interaction

Session

Session 4 » Observations (09:00 - Tuesday, 16th May)

Paper

Ferguson_-_normal_gradient_arcing-slides.pdf

Presentation Files

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