13kW Advanced Electric Propulsion Flight System Development and Qualification (original) (raw)
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13kW Advanced Electric Propulsion System Power Processing Unit Development
2019
Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) can enable missions that are otherwise not feasible, especially missions with a large total impulse requirement [1], [2]. Key to the function of any SEP system is the conversion of power from the spacecraft’s unregulated DC bus voltage to the currents and voltages required to reliably start and operate the thruster. NASA has identified the 10 to 15kW class Hall thruster system as necessary for human exploration missions in the coming years [3], [4]. Aerojet Rocketdyne’s 13kW Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) program will provide the propulsion to make deep space missions affordable and sustainable with the first application on the Power Prolusion Element of the Lunar Orbiting Platform Gateway [5]. AEPS provides NASA with a high-power, high-specific impulse, and highly-throttleable Electric Propulsion (EP) string for deep space transport vehicles. The Development of AEPS PPU has addressed many new requirements, which enable Solar Electric Prop...
Overview of NASA’s Solar Electric Propulsion Project
2019
NASA is continuing to develop and qualify a state of the art 13 kW-class Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) for NASA exploration missions through a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR). An objective of the AEPS project is accelerate the adoption of high power electric propulsion technologies by reducing the risk and uncertainty of integrating Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies into space flight systems. NASA and AR have recently initiated testing of engineering hardware including the Hall Current Thruster (HCT), Power Processing Unit (PPU), and Xenon Flow Controller (XFC) at both the component and system levels. The successful completion of these tests will provide the required information to advance the AEPS system towards Critical Design Review. In support of the AEPS contract, NASA and JPL have been performing risk reduction activities to address specific concerns of this higher power Hall thruster propulsion system. These risk reduction activities have include...
Electric Propulsion Concepts Enabled by High Power Systems for Space Exploration
2nd International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 2004
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Development of High-Power Hall Thruster Power Processing Units at NASA GRC
51st AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, 2015
NASA GRC successfully designed, built and tested four different power processor concepts for high power Hall thrusters. Each design satisfies unique goals including the evaluation of a novel silicon carbide semiconductor technology, validation of innovative circuits to overcome the problems with high input voltage converter design, development of a direct-drive unit to demonstrate potential benefits, or simply identification of lessonslearned from the development of a PPU using a conventional design approach. Any of these designs could be developed further to satisfy NASA's needs for high power electric propulsion in the near future.
2011
Aerojet has identified an affordable architecture for human exploration of deep space. Following the key tenets of launch and in-space commonality, efficient in-space transportation, and phased capability development drives the overall cost of missions to the Moon, NEOs, Phobos, and the surface of Mars to within NASA’s existing Exploration budget while ensuring that risks to the crew and mission are minimized. Using high power solar electric tugs to preposition all non-time critical cargo and using conventional LOX/H2 high thrust systems for crew transportation enables the use of smaller launch vehicles with great commonality across NASA, DoD, and commercial missions, distributing fixed launch costs across a broad customer base and dramatically reducing exploration costs. Both 300kW and 600kW SEP Tugs are used for pre-placement of habitats, exploration equipment, and return vehicles at the destinations, allowing complete systems verification prior to crew Earth departure, significan...
Solar electric propulsion for future NASA missions
2015 IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2015
Use of high-power solar arrays, at power levels ranging from ~500 KW to several megawatts, has been proposed for a solar-electric propulsion (SEP) demonstration mission, using a photovoltaic array to provide energy to a high-power xenon-fueled engine. One of the proposed applications of the high-power SEP technology is a mission to rendezvous with an asteroid and move it into lunar orbit for human exploration, the Asteroid Retrieval mission. The Solar Electric Propulsion project is dedicated to developing critical technologies to enable trips to further away destinations such as Mars or asteroids. NASA needs to reduce the cost of these ambitious exploration missions. High power and high efficiency SEP systems will require much less propellant to meet those requirements.
Evaluation of a 4.5 kW Commercial Hall Thruster System for NASA Science Missions
42nd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit, 2006
The readiness of commercial Hall thruster technology is evaluated for near-term use on competitively-award, cost-capped science missions like the NASA Discovery program. Scientists on these programs continue to place higher demands on mission performance that must trade against the cost and performance of propulsion system options. Solar electric propulsion (SEP) systems can provide enabling or enhancing capabilities to several missions, but the widespread and routine use of SEP will only be realized through aggressive cost and schedule risk reduction efforts. Significant cost and schedule risk reductions can potentially be realized with systems based on commercial Hall thruster technology. The abundance of commercial suppliers in the United States and abroad provides a sustainable base from which Hall thruster systems can be cost-effectively obtained through procurements from existing product lines. A Hall thruster propulsion system standard architecture for NASA science missions is proposed. The BPT-4000 from Aerojet is identified as a candidate for near-term use. Differences in qualification requirements between commercial and science missions are identified and a plan is presented for a low-cost, low-risk delta qualification effort. Mission analysis for Discovery-class reference missions are discussed comparing the relative cost and performance benefits of a BPT-4000 based system to an NSTAR ion thruster based system. The BPT-4000 system seems best suited to destinations located relatively close to the sun, inside approximately 2 AU. On a reference near Earth asteroid sample return mission, the BPT-4000 offers mass performance competitive with or superior to NSTAR at much lower cost. Additionally, it is found that a low-cost, mid-power commercial Hall thruster system may be a viable alternative to aerobraking for some missions.
Overview on Electric Propulsion Development at IRS
More than three decades of experience have been gained in the field of electric propulsion at the Institute of Space Systems (Institut für Raumfahrtsysteme = IRS). Recent developments within the field of electric propulsion are summarized and foremost results are highlighted. The various types of electric propulsion systems are not considered as to be competitive. Here, system analysis shows that optimum parameter such as the required exhaust velocity or specific impulse result taking into account both the mission profile and system related sizes such as the power conditioner efficiency, the thrust efficiency and the specific mass of the corresponding power unit. Correspondingly, ion thrusters, Hall thrusters, thermal arcjets, or magnetoplasmadynamics (MPD) thrusters are preferable depending on the mission. In addition, several advanced plasma propulsion designs have been developed and characterized at IRS in the past 10 years. Among them are the hybrid thruster TIHTUS, steady state...
Activities In Electric Propulsion Development at IRS
Transactions of the Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Space Technology Japan, 2009
More than three decades of experience have been gained in the field of electric propulsion at the Institute of Space Systems (Institut für Raumfahrtsysteme=IRS). Recent developments within the field of electric propulsion are summarized and foremost results are highlighted. The various types of electric propulsion systems are not considered as to be competitive. Here, system analysis shows that optimum parameter such as the required exhaust velocity or specific impulse result taking into account both the mission profile and system related sizes such as the power conditioner efficiency, the thrust efficiency and the specific mass of the corresponding power unit. Correspondingly, ion thrusters, Hall thrusters, thermal arcjets, or magnetoplasmadynamics (MPD) thrusters are preferable depending on the mission. Among the described electric propulsion systems are recent developments in the field of applied field MPD but also from high power hybrid thrusters. In addition, new concepts such as the hybrid systems Thermal-Inductively heated Hybrid-Thruster of the University of Stuttgart (TIHTUS) and the so-called Coupled Tether/Ion Engine Propulsion (CETEP) are analysed.
Development status of the NASA 30-cm ion thruster and power processor
NASA STI/Recon …, 1994
Xenon ion propulsion systems are being developed by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to provide flight qualification and validation for planetary and Earth-orbital missions. In the ground-test element of this program, light-weight « 7 kg), 30 cm diameter ion thrusters have been fabricated, and preliminary design verification tests have been conducted. At 2.3 kW, the thrust, specific impuls~ and efficiency were 91 mN, 3300 s, and 0.65, respectively. An engineering model thruster is now undergoing a 2000 h wear-test. A breadboard power processor is being developed to operate from a 80 V to 120 V power bus with inverter switching frequencies of 50 kHz. The power processor design is a pathfinder and uses only three power supplies. The projected specific mass of a flight unit is about 5 kg/kW with an efficiency of 0.92 at the full-power of 2.5 kW. Preliminary integration tests of the neutralizer power supply and the ion thruster have been completed. Fabrication and test of the discharge and beam/accelerator power stages are underway.