Basic experiment on charging mitigation of solar array in geostationary orbit environment

Many of spacecraft anomalies are caused by discharge on solar array. We investigate two methods to mitigate discharge on the solar array of spacecraft in geostationary orbit (GEO). The first method is to have discharge at safer points before the discharge occurs on solar cells. The second method is not to make the potential of the spacecraft negative. The mitigation prototypes were designed from the two methods and tested in a vacuum chamber that simulated the geostationary orbit plasma environment. As a result, the two methods are proven to be effective to suppress charging and arcing on solar array in GEO environment