Minimization of Thruster Plume Effects on Spacecraft Surfaces

Abstract

For the past several years, Advatech Pacific has been maintaining and enhancing the COLISEUM plume simulation environment under the direction of AFRL/PRSS. COLISEUM is a software environment used to model the propagation of a plasma plume and its interactions with solid surfaces (including both sputtering and re-deposition). A recent addition to the capabilities of COLISEUM is its integration with ModelCenter, the optimization and integration framework developed by Phoenix Integration. With the help of ModelCenter, the thrust directions of four Hall Effect Thrusters (HETs) for a representative satellite geometry are optimized such that the overall sputtering on the solar panels is minimized, subject to performance constraints on the overall thrust and torque. The satellite is assumed to be in a geosynchronous orbit, with the solar panels always facing the sun. Different positions in the satellite's orbit are considered, as is a case where one thruster is disabled. All cases considered showed smooth convergence behavior, and sputtering on the solar panels could be reduced significantly while meeting all performance constraints.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA467840

Entities

People

  • Juan Velez
  • Justin W. Koo
  • Michael Gorrilla
  • Peter J. Rohl

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Engineers
  • Geometry
  • Geosynchronous Orbits
  • Hall Effect
  • Hall Thrusters
  • Ion Thrusters
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Simulations
  • Solar Panels
  • Spacecraft
  • Spacecraft Components
  • Thrust
  • Thrusters

Readers

  • Aerospace Propulsion Engineering.
  • Software Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster
  • Space - Orbital Debris