Improved ESD test method 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 ISO 14302 [1], which is commonly used in space industry, leaves a lot of freedom to the test conductor on how the test is performed, which in turn has an influence on the injected current and therefore on the test results. In this paper various standard ESD test methods, set-ups and instrumentation are assessed with respect to repeatability and influence factors and a new test method is proposed, overcoming the deficits of the standard methods while ensuring a very good reproducibility of the injected current waveform.