Estimation of Free Space Capacitance and Body Potential of a Spacecraft for Charging Analysis

This paper presents a computation of the absolute free space capacitance and electrostatic body potential of a spacecraft using moment method with triangular patch modeling. Expressions are derived numerically and the moment integral is evaluated. The capacitance of a square plate is computed to validate the approach. Finally, the free space capacitance of a typical spacecraft is computed for various configurations and body potential is evaluated. The derived expressions are simple and suitable for developing the charging analysis tool. As this approach is more general, it can be easily applied to any practical spacecraft configuration.