This presentation reviews Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) Mission Architectures with a slant towards power system technologies and challenges. The low-mass, high-performance attributes of SEP systems have attracted spacecraft designers and mission planners alike and have led to a myriad of proposed Earth orbiting and planetary exploration missions. These SEP missions are discussed from the earliest missions in the 1960's, to first demonstrate electric thrusters, to the multi-megawatt missions envisioned many decades hence. The technical challenges and benefits of applying high-voltage arrays, thin film and low-intensity, low-temperature (LILT) photovoltaics, gossamer structure solar arrays, thruster articulating systems and microsat systems to SEP spacecraft power system designs are addressed. The overarching conclusion from this review is that SEP systems enhance, and many times enable, a wide class of space missions.
Solar Electric Propulsion Mission Architectures
2003
20 pages
Report
No indication
English
Solar Energy , Manned Spacecraft , Unmanned Spacecraft , Space missions , Solar electric propulsion , Propulsion system configurations , Interplanetary spacecraft , Space exploration , Spacecraft power supplies , Thin films , Solar arrays , Photovoltaic cells , Microsatellites , Orbit transfer vehicles
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