UK-10 electric drive hardware

Discusses the development of the UK-10 ion propulsion subsystem at Marconi Space Systems in Portsmouth, RAE, Culham Laboratory and Philips Components which will provide hardware for stationkeeping of communications satellites and for drag compensation of low altitude satellites. As a result, significant savings in propellant and hence launch mass can be achieved for geostationary satellites which allows cost savings due to lower launch costs, or increased revenue-earning by adding extra payload. Mass savings can also be made for low orbit spacecraft, but additionally, the orbit altitude may be maintained very accurately by continuous drag compensation, and the lack of any impulsive manoeuvres means that oscillations are not induced into the solar array and antenna structures, so providing a high performance platform