Surface Unequal Charging Effect of GEO Satellite

When a satellite is in orbit, the plasma environment interacts with the surface material, and the surface charge accumulation of different structures is inconsistent,resulting in an unequal charging effect. In serious cases, this leads to electrostatic discharge and affects the normal operation of the satellite. In this study, a three-dimensional model of a geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellite is constructed, and the particle cloud grid algorithm (Particle-In-Cell,PIC) was used to simulate the charging process and the surface charge state of satellite in different lasma environment. The simulation results show that in the solar wind plasma environment, the charging balance potential of solar panels is low and the charging difference between panels is small, which does not affect the normal operation of the satellite. However, when the satellite is in an hot plasma environment, if some parts of the satellite suddenly encounter extremely strong interference, the charging balance of the satellite in the solar wind plasma will be destroyed, and there will be a large potential difference between the irradiated part and the adjacent structure, which can easily cause electrostatic discharge to harm the normal operation of the satellite.