A detailed study examines the potential benefits that advanced electric propulsion (EP) technologies offer to the cost-capped missions in NASA's Discovery program. The study looks at potential cost and performance benefits provided by three EP technologies that are currently in development: NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT), an Enhanced NSTAR system, and a Low Power Hall effect thruster. These systems are analyzed on three straw man Discovery class missions and their performance is compared to a state of the art system using the NSTAR ion thruster. An electric propulsion subsystem cost model is used to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for each option. The results show that each proposed technology offers a different degree of performance and/or cost benefit for Discovery class missions.


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    Title :

    Evaluation of solar electric propulsion technologies for discovery class missions


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    41st AIAA/ASME/SEA/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit ; 2005 ; Tucson, AZ, United States


    Publication date :

    2005-07-10


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English







    Evaluation of Solar Electric Propulsion Technologies for Discovery Class Missions

    Oh, D. Y. / American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics / Society of Automotive Engineers et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005


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