Electrostatic Discharge Plasma Propagation Speed on Solar Panel in Simulated Geosynchronous Environment

An international project has started to establish an International organization for standardization standard for the electrostatic discharge (ESD) on the solar array panel. For the ESD ground test of satellite solar panel, it is important to understand the characteristics of a primary arc discharge. A solar array coupon made of triple-junction cells is used to understand the primary arc characteristics. In particular, the experiment focuses on the measurement of the propagation speed of plasma generated by the primary arc. The plasma propagation is analyzed using images captured by a high-speed video camera and an image intensified camera. The plasma propagation speed derived from discharge images decreases in proportion to the inverse of the square root of time. The arc current waveform assuming the decreasing speed agreed with the experiment waveform very well.