Touchless Charge Sensing of Neighboring Spacecraft in Cislunar Space

Touchless charge sensing technologies have been proposed to measure the potential of neighboring spacecraft in a Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit. This technology has applications in preventing arc discharges during docking and rendezvous, measuring disturbing torques due to the electrostatic force, and in-situ servicing using electrostatic actuation. As more missions are sent to cislunar space, including the Lunar Gateway, touchless charge sensing may be extended to the region. However, the complexity of the cislunar environment and spacecraft-plasma interactions presents novel challenges for charge determination. To overcome these challenges, the cislunar spacecraft-plasma interactions will first be characterized using environmental data gathered by previous lunar missions, such as NASA’s ARTEMIS mission, and NASCAP-2k, a 3D spacecraft charging and plasma interaction code. The results will then serve as the basis for simulations in SIMION, a software package used to calculate electric fields and particle trajectories, and experimental tests. These simulations and experiments will determine sensing requirements to account for spacecraft wakes, short Debye lengths, complex spacecraft geometry, and differential charging that will be encountered in cislunar space. The result will be technology capable of sensing the charge of neighboring spacecraft in cislunar space in all situations. In addition, the dynamics associated with electrostatic forces in cislunar space will be investigated using Basilisk, an open-source spacecraft simulation framework.

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