“…The beam-plasma discharge (BPD) instability [Getty and Smullin, 1963] has reemerged in recent years [Smullin, 1981;Bernstein et al, 1978] as a fundamental process to be considered by designers of space-vehicle-borne electron accelerator experiments. Because of concerns over vehicle neutralization during these experiments and an interest in further understanding of the BPD process [Cambou et al, 1975[Cambou et al, , 1978 a series of space simulation investigations of the BPD phenomenon was undertaken in the large vacuum chamber facility at the Johnson Space Center [Bernstein eta/., 1978[Bernstein eta/., , 1979Szuszczewicz et el., 1979Szuszczewicz et el., , 1982Papadopoulos, 1982;Anderson et al, 1982].…”