Preventing ion bombardment caused breakdown in high voltage space power systems and applications to Space Power Experiments Aboard Rockets (SPEAR)

Ionospheric ions bombarding high-field electrodes have been shown to cause electrical breakdown in systems that would operate successfully in a perfect vacuum. Bushings have been engineered to block ion trajectories and to prevent surface charging in order to avoid breakdown. The complicated geometries associated with realistic space power systems act to reduce the ion current to individual components. The theory of these effects and the design of SPEAR I and SPEAR II payloads using these techniques are described. The high-voltage power systems are designed to operate at up to 100 kV, without insulation, exposed to the natural space environment