(a) Volume plasma potential sliced along the spacecraft–Sun line in V for PSP at 9.8 R_S when photoelectron temperatures are simulated as 14 eV. Dark blue represents areas of negative potential around the spacecraft, while red represents areas of positive potential. The electrostatic barrier is present in front of the heat shield and the ion wake is present behind the spacecraft in the anti-RAM direction. (b) Plasma potential along the black dashed vector shown in the top panel plotted for the simulated photoelectron temperatures of 2 eV (blue line, baseline case) and 14 eV (red line, high-end limit). The electrostatic barrier in front of the spacecraft is located at ∼−0.4 m. The potential well dips to −22.3 V for the baseline case and −21.7 V for the high-end limit case. The spacecraft floating potential itself is not included in the plot data, creating a gap in the plotted potential from ∼0 m to ∼2.4 m. (c) Zoomed-in view of the potential well at ∼−0.4 m in front of the spacecraft.