Multipactor effect on board spacecrafts: present situation, future research activities and testing capabilities at the European Space Agency

Summary form only given. Multipactor effect is a discharge phenomenon, which may occur in radio frequency circuits on board spacecraft. In an RF voltage breakdown, the electron generation mechanism is based on secondary electron emission from the conductor walls. Several approaches have been followed over the last few decades to eliminate the risk of discharge on board spacecraft. In spite of the efforts made, the threat of RF voltage breakdown is still a serious issue when designing and manufacturing RF components for space applications. The increasing demand of higher RF power amplifiers on board the payloads implies more difficulties to RF engineers when designing microwave components for space applications. Multipactor effect can cause long term erosion of component surfaces, resulting in degraded performance and even total component failure. Over the last 20 years the European Space Agency (ESA) has investigated this phenomena resulting in a significant improvement in designing, manufacturing and testing RF high power devices. However, the problem is far from being solved and the threat of an on-board RF discharge must be eliminated. Novel research activities will be implemented in ESA´s research programs over the next few years to eradicate the risk of RF breakdown in future payloads. This paper shows some of these research activities and describes the test capabilities used by ESA to provide diagnostic and test support to European space programs and industry.