ABSTRACT
If the ambient electron temperature rises beyond the critical temperature, there are, of course, more and more ambient hot electrons. The flux of hot electrons increases accordingly. As a result, the magnitude of the negative spacecraft potential ϕ rises. The critical temperature, the spacecraft is uncharged, and therefore the ambient electron flux exceeds that of the ambient ions by nearly two orders of magnitude. The critical high temperature, the spacecraft is charged by the high-energy ambient electrons to negative potentials. At energies well beyond the critical temperature, the space plasma often deviates from being Maxwellian. Let us examine some data from the LANL satellites.
