کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
1766276 1020143 2010 7 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Electric discharge in the Martian atmosphere, Paschen curves and implications for future missions
موضوعات مرتبط
مهندسی و علوم پایه علوم زمین و سیارات علوم فضا و نجوم
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Electric discharge in the Martian atmosphere, Paschen curves and implications for future missions
چکیده انگلیسی

Electric discharge between two electrically charged surfaces occurs at a well-defined, gas-dependent combination of atmospheric pressure and the distance between those two surfaces, as described by Paschen’s law. The understanding of when the discharge will occur in the conditions present on Mars is essential for designing space-flight hardware that will operate on the Martian surface as well as understanding electrical discharge processes occurring in the Martian atmosphere. Here, we present experimentally measured Paschen curves for a gas mixture representative of the Martian atmosphere and compare our results to breakdown voltages of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and helium as measured with our system and from the literature. We will discuss possible implications for instrument development as well as implications for processes in the Martian atmosphere. The DC voltage at which electric discharge occurred between two stainless steel spheres was measured at pressures from 10−2 to 100 torr in all gases. We measured a minimum voltage for discharge in the Mars ambient atmosphere of 410 ± 10 V at 0.3 torr cm. As an application, the breakdown properties of space-qualified, electrical wires to be used in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) were studied.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Advances in Space Research - Volume 46, Issue 10, 15 November 2010, Pages 1334–1340
نویسندگان
, , , ,