Breakdown characteristics in space environment: enclosed or partially enclosed structures

We have decomposed the problem of breakdown in the space environment into two: 1) breakdown in partially enclosed structures, where the effect of the "ground" electrode (i.e., the enclosing structure) needs to be taken into account, and 2) "sheath" breakdown, where the "ground" electrode is assumed to be at infinity. This paper presents the physics and numerical simulations of breakdown for the generic situation of breakdown in partially enclosed structures.