Preflight predictions of high voltage - ion collection of the charge hazard and wake studies experiment

Summary form only given. In late 1993, the Space Shuttle is scheduled to carry aloft the Wake Shield Facility (WSF). One of the experiments aboard the WSF is the Charge Hazard And Wake Studies experiment (CHAWS) which will measure the plasma environment on both the ram and wake sides of the WSF. On the wake side, the monitor is a hybrid Langmuir probe in the shape of a cylinder 4" in diameter by 18" in length. Both the ram side monitor and wake side probe contain novel multichannel array based retarding potential analyzers with entrance angle imaging capability. In support of the flight experiment, numerous computational studies have been conducted, as well as one laboratory simulation. The numerical calculations include steady-state models from the POLAR and MACH codes, and a particle-in-cell simulation.