Mandell, Richard Marchand, Hirokazu Masui, Jean-Charles. Mateo-Velez, Hiroaki ... John Prebola, Etienne Rapp, David Rodgers, Jean-Francois. Roussel, Juan ...
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 36, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2008
Guest Editorial Special Issue on Spacecraft Charging Technology
T
HIS IS the second Special Issue of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON P LASMA S CIENCE dedicated to spacecraft charging technology. It is based on the papers presented at the tenth Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference, Biarritz, France, in June 2007. Thirty years after this series of conferences was initiated by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Air Force Research Laboratory, the interest for this field of plasma science and technology has grown to the point that the last five conferences had a truly international statute, two of them having been held in the U.S., two in Europe, and one in Japan with a periodicity close to two years. The tenth Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference was organized by CNES (the French Space Agency), ONERA (the French Aerospace Laboratory), and the European Space Agency. It was held at Biarritz, in the south of France and gathered more than 100 participants for 92 scientific communications as oral presentations or posters from 12 different countries. The quality of the results presented at the conference and the success of a similar initiative in 2005 motivated this special issue. The 30 articles which managed to make their way through the reviewing process provide a state of the art in the field and should make this issue a reference publication on spacecraft charging technology for the next few years. The topics treated here reflect those of the conference and include theory, ground experiments or in-flight investigations. Concerning spacecraft charging per se, the majors themes are the material electrical properties characterization and the effects of the interaction with the charging plasma environment, either natural or induced, e.g., by electric propulsion. The major concern of spacecraft charging for space technology is the risk of electrostatic discharges and associated arcs, which is therefore an active area of investigation. The electron radiation environment which results from magnetospheric processes and lead to electric charge buildup behind spacecraft surfaces is also an area of concern addressed by this community. Activities aiming at understanding the phenomenology and the physics of discharges and arcs have been thriving these last years, including, in the field of effect of discharge on solar panel, a worldwide experimental tests comparison and exchange. Important advances could even lead to the definition of a world standard. The parallel development of several codes devoted to spacecraft plasma interaction also led to a quick increase of the scope and capability of numerical simulation investigations. The
ranges of attainable plasma conditions and physical processes were both extended. Many factors must be gathered for the success of a Special Issue. Authors’ efforts to meet the IEEE quality standards and IEEE TPS editorial staff who patiently assisted them are gratefully acknowledged. We are also indebted to the reviewers for their contribution to this effort. Their names are listed below: Nicolas Andre, Carsten Baur, Jean-Jacques Berthelier, Daniel Boscher, Marco Capacci, Jean-Pierre Catani, Jacques Cazaux, Enrico Chesta, Mengu Cho, Victoria Davis, J. R. Dennison, Gerhard Drolshagen, Anders Eriksson, Denis Estublier, Joseph Fennell, Dale Ferguson, Julien Forest, John Foster, Ikkoh Funaki, Henry Garrett, Eric Gengembre, Nelson Green, Mike Hapgood, Alain Hilgers, Ryan Hoffmann, Satoshi Hosoda, Virginie Inguimbert, Minoru Iwata, David Joy, Insoo Jun, Yasumasa Kasaba, Ira Katz, Wousik Kim, Kiyokazu Koga, Linda Krause, Harri Laakso, Shu Lai, Philip Leung, Myron Mandell, Richard Marchand, Hirokazu Masui, Jean-Charles Mateo-Velez, Hiroaki Miyake, Masao Nakamura, Richard C. Olsen, Thierry Paulmier, Denis Payan, James E. Pollard, John Prebola, Etienne Rapp, David Rodgers, Jean-Francois Roussel, Juan Sanmartin, Yasuhiro Tanaka, Benoit Thiebault, Klaus Torkar, Kazuhiro Toyoda, Laurent Trougnou, Hideyuki Usui, Boris Vayner, Joseph Wang, Rikio Watanabe, Albert Whittlesey, and Robert Winglee. MENGU CHO, Guest Editor Kyushu Institute of Technology Kitakyushu 804-8550, Japan HENRY B. GARRETT, Guest Editor Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA ALAIN HILGERS, Guest Editor ESA 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands SHU T. LAI, Guest Editor Air Force Research Laboratory Hanscom AFB., MA 01731 USA DENIS PAYAN, Conference Chairman CNES 31401 Toulouse Cedex 9, France JEAN-FRANÇOIS ROUSSEL, Guest Editor ONERA 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2008.2006198 0093-3813/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
