Solar power system options for the Radiation and TechnologyDemonstration spacecraft

The Radiation and Technology Demonstration (RTD) Mission has the primary objective of demonstrating high-power (10 kilowatts) electric thruster technologies in Earth orbit. This paper discusses the conceptual design of the RTD spacecraft photovoltaic (PV) power system and mission performance analyses. These power system studies assessed multiple options for PV arrays, battery technologies and bus voltage levels. To quantify performance attributes of these power system options, a dedicated Fortran code was developed to predict power system performance and estimate system mass. The low-thrust mission trajectory was analyzed and important Earth orbital environments were modeled. Baseline power system design options are recommended on the basis of performance, mass and risk/complexity. Important findings from parametric studies are discussed and the resulting impacts to the spacecraft design and cost     

POWOW: power without wires: a SEP concept for space exploration

Electric propulsion has emerged as a cost-effective solution to a wide range of satellite applications. Deep Space 1 successfully demonstrated electric propulsion as the primary propulsion source for a satellite. The POWOW concept is a solar-electric propelled spacecraft capable of significant cargo and short trip times for traveling to Mars. It would enter aerosynchronous orbit and from there, beam power to surface installations via lasers. The concept has been developed with industrial partner expertise in high efficiency solar cells, advanced concentrator modules, innovative arrays, and high power electric propulsion systems. The latest version of the spacecraft, the technologies used, and trip times to Mars are presented. The POWOW spacecraft is a general purpose solar electric propulsion system that uses new technologies that are directly applicable to commercial and government spacecraft with power levels ranging from a LEO power level of 4 kW up to GEO spacecraft about 1 MW. The system is modular, expandable, and amenable to learning curve cost projection methods     

Next-Generation Thin-Film Photovoltaics

Future spacecraft and high-altitude airship (HAA) solar array technologies will require high array specific power (W/kg), which can be met using thin-film photovoltaics (PV) on lightweight and flexible substrates [1]. Thin-film array technology, with thin-film specific array support structure, begin to exceed the specific power of crystalline multi-junction arrays with thin-film device efficiencies as low as 8.5% [2]. Thin-film PV devices have other advantages in that they are more easily integrated into HAAs, and are projected to be much less costly than their crystalline PV counterparts. Furthermore, it is likely that only thin-film array technology will be able to meet device specific power requirements exceeding 1 kW/kg (photovoltaic and integrated substrate/blanket mass only).     

The Dawn Spacecraft

The Dawn spacecraft is designed to travel to and operate in orbit around the two largest main belt asteroids, Vesta and Ceres. Developed to meet a ten-year life and fully redundant, the spacecraft accommodates an ion propulsion system, including three ion engines and xenon propellant tank, utilizes large solar arrays to power the engines, carries the science instrument payload, and hosts the hardware and software required to successfully collect and transmit the scientific data back to Earth. The launch of the Dawn spacecraft in September 2007 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was the culmination of nearly five years of design, development, integration and testing of this unique system, one of the very few scientific spacecraft to rely on ion propulsion. The Dawn spacecraft arrived at its first destination, Vesta, in July 2011, where it will conduct science operations for twelve months before departing for Ceres.     

大型低轨道载人航天器电位主动控制

采用高电压太阳电池阵供电系统的低轨道(LEO)大型航天器会收集周围空间环境电子电流,使其被充电到较高的负电位,从而对航天器交会对接和航天员出舱产生严重的危害,因此对这种航天器表面电位进行主动控制可有效降低航天器运行风险和保障航天员安全。采用地面模拟试验的方法,利用空心阴极等离子体接触器发射电子的手段,模拟太空环境下对带负电航天器表面电位进行有效控制。研究结果表明,最小工质流率大于4.0 sccm时空心阴极发射的电子电流可以抵消航天器吸收的电子电流,实现航天器电位的自适应控制,将航天器表面电位钳制在20 V之内;且随着氙气流率的增加,钳位电压会更小。这一方法将有效避免航天员出舱活动和航天器交会对接时的放电危险,对中国航天器带电效应防护具有很重要的意义。     

Direct drive options for electric propulsion systems

Power processing units (PPUs) in an electric propulsion system provide many challenging integration issues. The PPU must provide power to the electric thruster while maintaining compatibility with all of the spacecraft power and data systems. Inefficiencies in the power processor produce heat, which must be radiated to the environment in order to ensure reliable operation. Although PPU efficiencies are generally greater than 0.9, heat loads are often substantial. This heat must be rejected by thermal control systems which generally have specific masses of 15-30 kg/kW. PPUs also represent a large fraction of the electric propulsion system dry mass. Simplification or elimination of power processing in a propulsion system would reduce the electric propulsion system specific mass and improve the overall reliability and performance. A direct drive system would eliminate all or some of the power supplies required to operate a thruster by directly connecting the various thruster loads to the solar array. The development of concentrator solar arrays has enabled power bus voltages in excess of 300 V which is high enough for direct drive applications for Hall thrusters such as the Stationary Plasma Thruster (SPT). The option of solar array direct drive for SPTs is explored to provide a comparison between conventional and direct drive system mass     

Numerical modeling of spacecraft electric propulsion thrusters

There is a clear current trend towards the replacement of small chemical thrusters used for spacecraft control by electric propulsion thrusters. These thrusters use a variety of mechanisms to convert electrical power into thrust and, in general, provide superior specific impulse in comparison to chemical systems. Electric propulsion has been under development for the last 40 yr, and almost all thrusters are designed based on experience and experimentation. The present article considers the progress made in numerical simulation of electric propulsion thrusters. Due to the wide range of such devices, attention is restricted to electric propulsion thruster types that are presently in use by orbiting spacecraft. The physical regimes created in these thrusters indicate that a variety of numerical methods is required for accurate numerical simulation ranging from continuum formulations to kinetic approaches. Successes of numerical simulation models are demonstrated through specific examples. It is concluded that numerical simulations can be expected to play a more prominent role in the design and evolution of future electric propulsion thrusters.     

Highlights of a Brushless Direct-Drive Solar Array Control System Design

This paper summarizes a drive system design for controlling the position and rate of solar power arrays on orbiting spacecraft. There are no gears or sliding contact elements used anywhere in the system and only low-speed bearings are needed. Such mechanization is particularly well suited to solid lubrication techniques, and wear rates are very low, so that the drive system can operate directly in the space environment for long periods of time. Three major components were developed for implementation of this design concept. They are: 1) a brushless dc torque motor; 2) a rotary power transformer; and 3) an offset-tooth shaft position and rate sensor. These components are combined in a hybrid system configuration in which the signal processing and logic functions are performed by digital and linear integrated circuits. A root contour and describing function analysis, confirmed by experimentation, shows that several modes of limit cycle generation can occur in the vicinity of null. Compensation circuits are given that inhibit or suppress limit cycling and provide controlled electronic damping of the system. The system offers relatively high stiffness and can be operated at indefinitely low angular rates with minimum power consumption.     

航天器解体模型研究的新进展

航天器解体模型用于描述航天器因爆炸或碰撞解体所产生碎片的数量、尺寸、面质比以及速度等特性的分布规律,对于空间碎片环境建模与演化、空间碎片撞击风险评估及空间解体事件分析具有重要意义。分析了目前广泛使用的NASA标准解体模型的特点,介绍了近年来国内外在航天器解体模型方面的研究进展。国外的研究主要介绍了日本九州大学和德国EMI实验室开展的卫星撞击试验以及NASA最近启动的新一轮卫星撞击研究项目。国内的研究主要介绍中国空气动力研究与发展中心（CARDC ）开展的卫星撞击试验和仿真研究,以及在此基础上发展的CARDC-SBM航天器碰撞解体模型,并比较分析了该模型与 NASA 标准解体模型的差别。对当前航天器解体模型研究存在的不足进行了分析,提出了下一步应关注的研究方向。     

Atmospheric Distortion of Signals Originating from Space Sources

The phasefront distortion imposed on space signals by fine-grained refractivity variations of the atmosphere is an important consideration in the design of large-aperture antennas, antenna arrays, antenna systems for measuring spacecraft position and position-rate, and radioastronomy systems. The distortion caused by ionospheric and tropospheric refractivity variations imposes fundamental limitations on the capabilities of these antennas and antenna systems, particularly on systems which must operate at low elevation angles. The purpose of this paper is to present numerical estimates of distortion imposed on signals passing through the atmosphere. Atmospheric models based on available literature are selected for this purpose.     

Comparison of Bit Synchronization Schemes Using AM and Summed Clocks

This paper considers bit synchronization through the use of a separate clock signal which is either amplitude modulated onto or summed with the data signal. For continuous data transmission, such schemes are known to be inferior, in the sense of efficient use of power, to schemes which derive synchronization directly from the data signal. However, these techniques have application in burst systems such as spacecraft command systems, and in systems where receiver simplicity is more important than power conservation. For systems in which the composite data-clock signal subsequently modulates an RF carrier, it is shown that the summed clock signal performs slightly better than the AM clock signal, and that for both signal types, the optimum allocation of power between data and clock is approximately 9:1.     

Radioisotope powered AMTEC systems

Alkali Metal Thermal to Electric Converter (AMTEC) systems are being developed for high performance spacecraft power systems, including small, General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) powered systems. Several design concepts have been evaluated for the power range from 75 W to 1 kW. The specific power for these concepts has been found to be as high as 18-20 W/kg and 22 kW/m³. The projected area, including radiators, has been as low as 0.4 m²/kW. AMTEC power systems are extremely attractive, relative to other current and projected power systems, because AMTEC offers high power density, low projected area, and low volume. Two AMTEC cell design types have been identified. A single-tube cell is already under development and a multi-tube cell design, to provide additional power system gains, has undergone proof-of-principle testing. Solar powered AMTEC (SAMTEC) systems are also being developed, and numerous terrestrial applications have been identified for which the same basic AMTEC cells being developed for radioisotope systems are also suitable     

Conception of spacecraft centralized power supply

A reliable power supply for spacecraft is one of the central problems determining the future development of space technology. The traditional solution to this problem implies having an autonomous power plant on board each spacecraft. The most widely used are power plants with solar cells. However, there exists an alternative power supply concept of using a centralized power supply system (CPSS) and power transmission to the user satellites by laser or microwave beams. Use of a CPSS has a number of advantages. In particular, it allows the spacecraft to increase power supply level and service life as well as to decrease the spacecraft mass and cost. However, it sets new physical and technical problems associated with long distance power transmission and requires some changes in spacecraft structure and concepts. The feasibility study of CPSS development and use has to rely on existing or firmly forecastable technologies. An attempt of such an analysis has been done by a group of scientists at Moscow State Aviation Institute during 1994-1996. The very first results have already been published. This paper discusses new results obtained lately regarding a space based CPSS     

ACTIVE SPACECRAFT POTENTIAL CONTROL

Charging of the outer surface or of the entire structure of a spacecraft in orbit can have a severe impact on the scientific output of the instruments. Typical floating potentials for magnetospheric satellites (from +1 to several tens of volts in sunlight) make it practically impossible to measure the cold (several eV) component of the ambient plasma. Effects of spacecraft charging are reduced by an entirely conductive surface of the spacecraft and by active charge neutralisation, which in the case of Cluster only deals with a positive potential. The Cluster spacecraft are instrumented with ion emitters of the liquid-metal ion-source type, which will produce indium ions at 5 to 8 keV energy. The operating principle is field evaporation of indium in the apex field of a needle. The advantages are low power consumption, compactness and high mass efficiency. The ion current will be adjusted in a feedback loop with instruments measuring the spacecraft potential (EFW and PEACE). A stand-alone mode is also foreseen as a back-up. The design and principles of the operation of the active spacecraft potential control instrument (ASPOC) are presented in detail. Flight experience with a similar instrument on the Geotail spacecraft is outlined.     

FPGA-based military avionics computing circuits

There are processing requirements for military avionics applications in excess of 10/sup 10/ operations per second. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) support these types of processing rates, and also offer other advantages (i.e., lower cost, lower power consumption, and smaller size) for military avionics relative to alternate types of processing solutions. This paper discusses the need for very high performance computing in military avionics, with precision guided munition (PGM) applications used as an example of this need. It presents a model suggesting continued rapid improvements in FPGA processing capability, and it analyzes the utility of FPGAs as processing engines in terms of processing capability, cost, power consumption, and size. It presents several examples of the use of FPGAs as processing engines which validate the model, and it also uses these examples to describe various FPGA-based processing engine implementation techniques.     

The SDP-1 Stored-Program Computer

A stored-program computer could be used to advantage on small scientific spaeeraft because of its flexibility. This paper describes the design and programming of a stored-program computer specifically adapted to this particular application. In order to be suitable for use in a small scientific spacecraft, a computer must have the following characteristics: reliability, low power drain, light weight, small size, problem-solving power, and flexibility. To meet these requirements, a computer was designed that has 1024 words of program memory and 512 words of data memory. The words are 12 bits in length and both memories are randomly accessed. In order to protect the program, the program memory is of the nondestrutive read-out type. The data memory is the conventional read/write variety. The computer is organized such that the power drain is small and less hardware is required by restricting parallel gating of information, number of registers, and number and complexity of instructions. Considerable effort has been devoted to programming the computer. Analysis shows that it takes on the order of two milliseconds to perform one of the floating-point operations. These limitations should be acceptable; the computer is not expected to be required to perform extremely complex or lengthy computations.     

The Operational Environment of the Hipparcos Mission

We investigate links between the observational environment as experienced by the Hipparcos satellite and the performance of the spacecraft and payload instrumentation, with particular emphasis on finding out whether some of these effects may have been inadequately represented in instrument calibrations and could thus have affected the scientific results of the mission. Scan-coverage and radiation effects are primarily random effects with only some long-term systematics. However, long- (days to weeks) and short-term (hours) temperature variations reflected in the performance of some of the spacecraft instrumentation. It is shown that only a small sign of some long-term thermal variations could be detected in the payload instrumentation. These findings further limit the scope left for the occurrence of large-scale correlated errors in the Hipparcos astrometric data. On the other hand, a number of great circles were identified which showed a highly significant drift of the basic angle, which had not been detected in the preparation of the published data. The data from these circles may have, in some cases, led to, very localised, slightly anomalous results, in particular where stars are accidentally affected by two or more of such circles. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Scaling of advanced power systems

Parts of a study conducted to examine state-of-the-art power systems applicable to future military spacecraft are summarized. The study focused on burst-mode megawatt-class CW power, such as might be applied to SDIO directed energy systems, but lower-power, continuous-duty subsystems were included in less detail. A set of simple mass and volume algorithms has been developed to approximate several prime systems, and these were incorporated into a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. Among the power subsystems included in that study were primary batteries, alkaline primary fuel cells, and combustion turbogenerators. These systems, which are the most likely candidates for mobile battlefield power, are described     

Electrical power distribution on space based radar satellites

The radar payload on a space-based radar (SBR) satellite could require tens of kilowatts of power distributed to many small loads over a large area. This poses special problems for the power distribution and control system (PDCS). A study that examined the power requirements of an SBR spacecraft is reported. A baseline prime power system, generating about 30 kW, was derived. The proposed distribution network would transmit 240 V at 20 kHz. The voltage would be downconverted in one converter for about 100 transmit/receive modules. The design considerations are discussed, and the baseline PDCS is described