An analysis has been made over a range of thruster, spacecraft and mission parameters to determine optimum electric propulsion requirements for LEO to GEO transfer missions. For this mission solar cell cover thicknesses of four to six mils each side appear to be an optimum compromise between mass and power loss due to radiation damage. The optimum range of thruster specific impulse for this mission is roughly from 1500 to 3000 seconds. Thrusters limited to much lower values of specific impulse and those requiring much higher specific impulse for good efficiency require substantially greater transfer times.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Shuttle to GEO propulsion tradeoffs


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Joint Propulsion Conference ; 1982 ; Cleveland, OH


    Publication date :

    1982-06-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English