The advanced solar photon thruster (ASPT) concept was first proposed, developed, and analyzed by Dachwald and Wurm. Since its debut as an alternative to the flat solar sail (FSS) for interplanetary missions, it has been deemed inferior for its technical complexity, poor scalability, and time-optimal transfer trajectory performance. A novel application of the ASPT to the space object tracking and detection mission has revealed several key performance benefits illuminating small debris in geostationary orbit (GEO). A numerical procedure to optimize the ASPT average solar reflected intensity was developed, and the optimized performance results were compared with those of an FSS with an equal total mass. Results demonstrate that although the FSS offers slightly better acceleration performance, in agreement with previously published literature, the ASPT can provide larger reflected solar intensities over a wider range of applicable phase angles, resulting in a 200% detection improvement when tracking a 10-cm-diam object. In addition, the vehicle slewing requirements for the ASPT are reduced to just one revolution per day as the surface directing the sun light onto small objects is decoupled from the large solar collector pointing at the sun. More specifically, a ground observer could continually detect small debris when illuminated by the ASPT, whereas the FSS design allowed for its detection when solar phase angles were 60 deg or larger. The ASPT offers substantial performance benefits to the GEO small debris tracking mission when considering flight safety, anomaly characterization, local area clearing around high-value assets, and space object catalog maintenance activities.


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    Title :

    Enhancing Debris Tracking Missions in Geostationary Orbit with Advanced Solar Photon Thrusters


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2020-04-09


    Size :

    11 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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