This paper examines the benefit that a solar electric propulsion (SEP) system based on the 5 kW Xenon Ion Propulsion System (XIPS) could have for NASA's Discovery class deep space missions. The relative cost and performance of the commercial heritage XIPS system is compared to NSTAR ion thruster based systems on three Discovery class reference missions: 1) a Near Earth Asteroid Sample Return, 2) a Comet Rendezvous and 3) a Main Belt Asteroid Rendezvous. It is found that systems utilizing a single operating XIPS thruster provides significant performance advantages over a single operating NSTAR thruster. In fact, XIPS performs as well as systems utilizing two operating NSTAR thrusters, and still costs less than the NSTAR system with a single operating thruster. This makes XIPS based SEP a competitive and attractive candidate for Discovery class science missions.
Performance Evaluation of an Expanded Range XIPS Ion Thruster System for NASA Science Missions
42nd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit ; 2006 ; Sacramento, CA, United States
2006-07-09
Preprint
No indication
English
Performance Evaluation of the XIPS 25-cm Thruster for Application to NASA Discovery Missions
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2006
|Performance Evaluation of an Expanded Range XIPS Ion Thruster System for NASA Science Missions
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2006
|