ABSTRACT
The cancellation property means that the more ambient electrons are coming in, the more secondary and backscattered electrons are going out proportionally. Consider the Maxwellian plasma situation in which the onset of spacecraft charging is governed by the current balance between the incoming electrons and the sum of the outgoing electrons plus the incoming ions. Charging in sunlight is positive in voltage, because the photoelectron flux typically exceeds the ambient electron flux by an order of magnitude. For spacecraft covered by mostly dielectric surfaces, which are not conductors but are useful for protecting sensitive electronic instruments and wires from ambient electrons, the potential distribution around the spacecraft in sunlight is not uniform. The chapter discusses the question of dependence of ambient electron density in spacecraft charging. The discussion involves many space environmental situations, such as charging in sunlight, charging in double Maxwellian environment, kappa environment, monopole-dipole charging model of spacecraft with dielectric surfaces in sunlight.
