In this question, there is discussion of charge buildup on a spacecraft.
Is it possible for a spacecraft to measure its own charge?
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1Electrical charge (measured in, among other units, Coulomb) is not the same thing as electric potential (measured in volts). – user Feb 13 '17 at 20:00
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But electric charge and electric potential are related by the electric capacity measured in Farad, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance – Uwe Feb 15 '17 at 09:05
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voting to close as duplicate because the answer there is more thorough. However it still describes a potential measurement rather than a charge measurement which I admit I've been a stickler about... – uhoh Dec 12 '19 at 03:23
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The ISS has a device called the Floating Potential Measurement Unit that handles this task. The linked page has a link to a pdf that describes it in more detail.
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1Your answers are often great. But the question seems to be about charge, not potential. That's based on two uses of the word "charge" there plus the reference to the linked question How is charge dissipated in ion-propulsed spacecraft?. Also, since links tend to break over time, a minimal self-contained answer would be better than "it is measured with a measuring unit, and here is where its pdf was in early 2017". – uhoh Feb 14 '17 at 05:07
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To be honest, I don't know much about it other than that it exists and that it was put in place to quantify the degree to which ISS gets charged relative to the plasma environment. I invite anyone else who is so inclined to dig deeper and improve on this answer. – Tristan Feb 14 '17 at 18:40