There have been many proposed technologies and architectures to extend a human presence beyond the Moon. Solar electric propulsion (SEP) provides the capability to implement a wide variety of missions with relatively low injected mass to low-Earth orbit. Because of its broad applicability this technology can enable progressively ambitious steps towards Mars by incrementally increasing power. The benefits of SEP are addressed for cis-lunar excursions, near-Earth asteroid exploration, and missions to Phobos and Deimos, and compared to chemical propulsion and nuclear thermal technologies. In particular, SEP expands the range of near-Earth asteroids accessible with a constrained launch capability (IMLEO).


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    Title :

    Human Exploration of Near-Earth Asteroids via Solar Electric Propulsion


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    AAS Space Flight Mechanics ; 2011 ; New Orleans, LA, United States


    Publication date :

    2011-02-14


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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