This paper discusses the (chemical or electric) propulsion system requirements necessary to increase the Spartan Lite science mission lifetime to over a year. Spartan Lite is an extremely low-cost (less than 10 M) spacecraft bus being developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to accommodate sounding rocket class (40 W, 45 kg, 35 cm dia by 1 m length) payloads. While Spartan Lite is compatible with expendable launch vehicles, most missions are expected to be tertiary payloads deployed by. the Space Shuttle. To achieve a one year or longer mission life from typical Shuttle orbits, some form of propulsion system is required. Chemical propulsion systems (characterized by high thrust impulsive maneuvers) and electrical propulsion systems (characterized by low-thrust long duration maneuvers and the additional requirement for electrical power) are discussed. The performance of the Spartan Lite attitude control system in the presence of large disturbance torques is evaluated using the Trectops(Tm) dynamic simulator. This paper discusses the performance goals and resource constraints for candidate Spartan Lite propulsion systems and uses them to specify quantitative requirements against which the systems are evaluated.
Investigation of Propulsion System Requirements for Spartan Lite
1998
10 pages
Report
No indication
English
Space Technology , Propulsion system performance , Space probes , Chemical propulsion , Electric propulsion , High thrust , Low cost , Control systems design , Space exploration , Space flight , Space power unit reactors , Launch vehicles , Remote sensing , Attitude control , Control theory , Controllability
Thermal Design and Analysis of the Spartan Lite Spacecraft
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998
|Engineering Index Backfile | 1932
Engineering Index Backfile | 1930
NTIS | 1989
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