Abstract
The space solar power system (SSPS) transfers enormous amounts of electrical energy through microwaves. When high-power microwaves are irradiated from an antenna in a LEO plasma environment, there is a concern about discharge caused by interaction between the plasma and the microwaves. There has been no experimental observation of such an interaction phenomenon. Verification experiments are essential for SSPS to become a reality. We examine whether discharge or related phenomena occur or not on patch antennas under various conditions in the laboratory. We verify the hypothesis of discharge inception that the discharge is caused by multipactoring and breakdown of the outgas product. We compute the minimum electric field for the discharge inception.
