Electrons, which are light and mobile, rush away from heavier ions in the expanding cloud - that creates a charge separation. The electric fields that grow between positively charged and negatively charged areas within the cloud induce currents in the body of the spacecraft. The satellite went into the wrong automated sequencing and, for a while, they lost control of the spacecraft. It took all the remaining propellant to regain control, and that was the end of that mission. Meteorids can also take their toll on solar sails and sun shields for orbiting telescopes.
Solar sails have lots of surface area so they make big targets.
Meteoroid population is greatest in the inner solar system. Over a ten-year period, sails can lose one or two percent of their total area to meteoroid strikes. Otherwise meteoroids could pose a big problem for such spacecraft. Keeping track of space dust is no easy task. The radar in Huntsville can only detect meteoroids that crash into Earth's atmosphere above the southeastern United States.