New NASA SEE LEO Spacecraft Charging Design Guidelines: How to Survive in LEO Rather Than GEO

It has been almost two solar cycles since the 1984 GEO Guidelines of Purvis, Garrett, Whittlesey, and Stevens were published. In that time, interest in high voltage LEO systems has increased. Correct and conventional wisdom has been that LEO conditions are sufficiently different from GEO that the GEO Guidelines (and other GEO and POLAR documents produced since then) should not be used for LEO spacecraft. Because of significant recent GEO spacecraft failures that have been shown in ground testing to be likely to also occur on LEO spacecraft, the SEE program commissioned the production of the new LEO Spacecraft Charging Design Guidelines. Now available in CD-ROM form, the LEO Guidelines highlight mitigation techniques to prevent spacecraft arcing on LEO solar arrays and other systems. We compare and contrast the mitigation techniques for LEO and GEO in this paper. We also discuss the extensive bibliography included in the LEO Guidelines, so results can be found in their primary sources.