Research on the Charging Process of LEO Spacecraft Surface Materials Based on Particle Transport Equations

Abstract

In order to find a simpler method to simulate the charging of spacecraft surface and further analyze the characteristics of the charging reaction of low-orbit spacecraft surface materials, this paper uses COMSOL to perform finite element analysis on the charging of low-orbit spacecraft surface materials at an altitude of 300–400 km. First, the surface charging potential is established using the particle transport equation. By calculating the thermal diffusion movement of particles, the adsorption, secondary electron emission and backscattering effects of the material surface are evaluated to simulate the charging potential of the spacecraft surface. The results show that COMSOL based on the plasma module can replace SPIS to simulate the charged properties of spacecraft surface materials, indicating that different physical properties of the material surface are attached with different magnitudes of potential and small potential differences; In addition, based on the particle transport equation, this paper obtains the surface charging results of the Kapton connector between the solar panel and the spacecraft body, which is prone to charging. This research content provides a simplified method and new direction for the simulation study of spacecraft surface charging.

Keywords

• Low Earth orbit
• spacecraft
• surface charging
• particle transport equation