The increasing technological maturity of relatively high power electric propulsion devices has led to a renewed interest in their use as a means of efficiently transferring payloads between earth orbits. The move towards such a vehicle requires a solid understanding of system level payoffs and interaction. Using the Electric Vehicle Analyzer (EVA) software tool developed at the Astronautics Laboratory, a systems level study was performed on an ammonia arcjet. The mission design constraints consisted of a Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) transfer that must be completed within a 200 day trip time. Technological maturity in electric propulsion devices lead to the selection of ammonia-fueled arcjets as the basis for the propulsion system for near term applications. However, the alternatives, methane and hydrogen, are briefly discussed. Another aspect of this study is power and its trip time and payload.
System Level Analysis of the Ammonia Arcjet
1990
10 pages
Report
No indication
English
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