Criterion of damaging effect caused by secondary arc discharge impact onto high-voltage solar batteries of the spacecraft

One problem of space solar power engineering is how to increase the solar batteries (SB) operating voltage up to 100 V and higher. It makes possible to decrease greatly the cabling mass and the mass of voltage transducers, but it can cause secondary arc discharges (SAD) able to destroy SB structure and to decrease SB output power. In the present paper we analyse how to choose criteria of damaging effect caused by secondary arc discharge impact onto SB, which make possible to determine the prevalent impact mechanism, and to estimate permissible number of discharges in each point of the solar battery. In brief, we examine methods for determining experimentally criteria of damaging effect caused by SAD impact to SB.