Abstract The ion thruster is expanding the application areas due to the very high specific impulse compared to the chemical thruster, and is utilized for the propulsion system of north-south station keeping of geostationary satellites. Ion thrusters are made to be of low thrust and small size because of their heavy weight. Therefore, ion thrusters of the geostationary satellite should be fired once on ascending node every day using battery power. In this paper, new ion thruster operating policies for geostationary satellite are proposed during the eclipse season. One method fires the ion thruster by using the remaining battery power right after the eclipse time. Another method considers the full operation of ion thruster during the eclipse season assuming that the battery can be fully recharged between the eclipse time and the station keeping time. The former method reduces the orbit inclination by 30% during the eclipse season, and the latter method, when fast recharging is possible between the eclipse time and the station keeping time, can keep the orbit inclination nearly zero.
Operational Analysis of Ion Thruster for Geostationary Satellite Considering Eclipse
2003
Article (Journal)
English
Operational Analysis of Ion Thruster for Geostationary Satellite Considering Eclipse
Springer Verlag | 2003
|Operational Analysis of Ion Thruster for Geostationary Satellite Considering Eclipse
Online Contents | 2003
|Geostationary operational environmental satellite system performance
Elsevier | 1981
|