Small and microthruster propulsion research at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Edwards AFB

Author

Dulligan, M. ; Gulczinski, F. ; Spanjers, G.

Author_Institution

AFRL, Edwards AFB, CA, USA

fYear

2000

fDate

4-7 June 2000

Firstpage

189

Abstract

Summary form only given. Clusters of satellites flying in cooperative formation require small and precise thruster operations to maintain formation integrity. Satellites in the 100-kg size class benefit from small thrusters for primary propulsion and micropropulsion for precision positioning and attitude control. A review of the research and development of small and micropropulsion thrusters at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Edwards AFB is presented with an emphasis on the propulsion package in development for the Air Force Research Laboratory TechSat21 flight in 2003.

Keywords

aerospace propulsion; artificial satellites; attitude control; plasma magnetohydrodynamics; position control; 100 kg; Edwards AFB; TechSat21 flight; US Air Force Research Laboratory; attitude control; cooperative formation; formation integrity; micropropulsion; microthruster propulsion research; precision positioning; primary propulsion; propulsion package; satellite; small thruster propulsion research; thruster operations; Laboratories; Packaging; Propulsion; Research and development; Satellites;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Plasma Science, 2000. ICOPS 2000. IEEE Conference Record - Abstracts. The 27th IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

New Orleans, LA, USA

ISSN

0730-9244

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5982-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PLASMA.2000.854984

Filename

854984