Abstract:
An effort is currently underway to recast and combine two NASA guidelines for
mitigating the effects of spacecraft charging and electrostatic discharge on spacecraft. The
task has the goal of taking the existing NASA guidelines for preventing surface electrostatic
charging, NASA-TP-2361 (Purvis et al., 1984), and internal electrostatic charging, NASAHDBK
4002 (Whittlesey, 1999), and bringing them up to date with recent laboratory and onorbit
findings. This paper will describe the status of those on-going efforts to combine and
update the two guidelines. Reasons for the upgrades will be presented, including new
subject material for which there is now a greater understanding or a greater need which
changes satellite design procedures, or both. There will be an emphasis on the proposed
contents and on the differences and similarities between surface and internal charging
mitigation techniques. In addition, the mitigation requirements that can be derived from the
combined handbook will be discussed with emphasis on how they might affect the
engineering design and testing of future spacecraft.
