Critical review of the ECSS-E-ST-20-07C ESD test set-up for testing spacecraft equipment

Satellite equipment needs to be immune to electrostatic discharges (ESD) likely to occur in flight. Testing the susceptibility against ESD on spacecraft equipment is therefore an important part of the EMC test program. The test method according to ECSS-E-ST-20-07C [1], which is commonly used in space industry, leaves undesirable degrees of freedom on how the test is performed, which in turn has an influence on the injected current and therefore on the test results. Because of the indirect coupling of ESD to circuits, the current waveform applied during the test and its repeatability are of high importance. In the frame of an ESTEC research contract (4000109887/13/NL/GLC), a critical review of the ECSS-E-ST-20-07C is performed to identify the influence factors which have an impact on the test repeatability.