Identification and solution of a charging problem in a high-altitude detector

The unwanted response of spacecraft borne instruments to electrons and other charged particles in orbit has long been at least a nuisance. In the benign case these particles generate background signals that require processing on orbit, increasing the instrument dead time,'' and sometimes interfere with the measurement of small effects. In the severe extreme, electrons can charge dielectrics in or near the instrument. Such charging can be followed by a breakdown discharge that can either generate false data, or, in rare cases, cause malfunction of the instrument. In recounting how we identified and solved the problem, we would like do so from the viewpoint of experimenters who were unfamiliar with the phenomenology of spacecraft charging and unaware of the considerable work that had been done already on the subject. Such a perspective is not only descriptive, but may be potentially useful to others in similar situations. A preliminary report was presented as a poster paper at the 1986 Hardened Electronics And Radiation Technology (HEART) conference. 7 figs.