SRC-443

NASA's Technical Handbook for Avoiding On-Orbit ESD Anomalies Due to Internal Charging Effects

Commissioned by NASA. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0882 For low Earth orbit NASA gives a voltage above which a power system may arc. For geostationary orbit it gives no equivalent voltage at all - the limits are set on how many electrons accumulate in a material and how strong the electric field inside it gets. The two orbits are not constrained in the same terms.
• CLM-0883 NASA puts the level at which internal charging starts causing failures at twenty billion electrons per square centimetre over ten hours, and designs to half that. It says no safety margin beyond that is specified.

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