PROJECT TITLE :

Analysis of Solar Array Performance Degradation During Simulated Flashover Discharge Experiments on a Full Panel and Using a Simulator Circuit

ABSTRACT:

The most activity of the European House Agency EMAGS3 study (revealed at 12th Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference Kitakyushu, Japan) was to simulate in-orbit electrostatic discharge, known as flashover, on a flight representative panel of dimensions two m m in an surroundings to realize inverted gradient conditions on the solar cells. Electrical performance was measured when the panel has suffered from about 1400 flashovers, some three hundred have been recorded and a minimum of twenty four of them covered additional than seventy five% of the surface. The comparison with the last measurements before testing revealed no degradation beyond 1%. Obvious variations in the form of the obtained curves might be attributed to increased serial resistances in the take a look at circuit. A flashover simulation circuit was designed to reproduce the heartbeat shape measured on the panel. Experiments on single cells using this circuit demonstrated its ability to substitute the flashover in ground tests.