Emission Spectral Analysis of Arc Plasma on Solar Array in GEO Environment

Abstract

As the power level of geostationary satellites increases, discharge phenomena on solar array become serious threat to safe operation. Therefore, it is important to clarify the mechanism of charging and arcing phenomena of the satellite. In this paper, we measured the spectrum of arcs by spectroscopy. We examined the condition of arc plasma when the arc shifted from primary arc to secondary arc by means of measuring arc plasma temperature and identifying material emitted from solar array. It was confirmed that the higher the arc plasma temperature in temporary sustained arc rose before shifting to the temporary sustained arc, the longer the time duration of temporary sustained arc became. Moreover, we confirmed that the arc shifted easily to temporary sustained arc if metallic vapor of aluminum which composed substrate is emitted more than metallic vapor of silver which composed electrode