1-9. High Voltage Solar Array Interacting with Ionospheric Plasma H. KUNINAKA1, Y. NOZAKI2 & K. KURIKI3 Summary Associated with large electrical power, efficient generation and transmission can be made by high voltage. Interaction with the ionospheric plasma, however, seems to be severe for the solar array with a high operational voltage, of which the interconnectors between the solar cells are exposed to the space plasma. The Two Dimensional High Voltage Solar Array Experiment onboard the Space Flyer Unit, which is the Japanese reusable spacecraft, is under development for flight testing in 1993 in order to determine the upper limit of the operational voltage in LEO. The purposes of this work are to study experimentally the interference phenomena on the high voltage solar array by the ionospheric plasma using a scaling model, and to estimate them quantitatively in the case of the 2D/HV experiment. New interactions, namely, the influence of ion drag on the spacecraft motion and the surface degradation by sputtering, which have been predicted by the numerical simulation, were confirmed by the ground experiment. Based on the observation of luminous phenomena on the border between a metal and an insulator, a hypothesis on the plasma-induced discharge of the negatively biased solar cells is presented. 'Research Associate, Member AIAA, 'Graduate Student, 'Professor, Associate Fellow AIAA/Director JSASS, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan. This work was supported as a United States-Japan Cooperative Science Program by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Paper number IAF-ICOSP89-1-9.
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