Potential advantages of solar electric propulsion for outer planet orbiters

Radially accelerated trajectories for variable mass spacecraft

“…This situation is representative of an interplanetary mission for a spacecraft equipped with a solar electric propulsion system [17,18], or with an M2P2 thruster whose power generation system is based on photovoltaic panels. In fact, within a first order approximation model, the electric power from the photovoltaic panels in the interplanetary space scales as 1/r 2 , where r is the distance from the Sun [19,20,21].…”

Multi-revolution transfer for heliocentric missions with solar electric propulsion

“…when the thruster input power is supplied by solar arrays. In that case the propulsive thrust modulus varies with the distance from the Sun depending on the solar array characteristics (Sauer and Atkins, 1972;Bourke and Sauer, 1972).…”

Current technology in ion and electrothermal propulsion

“…The 5-cm thruster, with the exception of the accelerator grid system, has operated more than 9715 hours in an endurance test at Lewis. 1 ' One of the accelerator grid systems used in this duration test has operated 7688 hours. In addition to the thruster duration tests, a separate cathode-isolator-vaporizer assembly has gone through over 3200 cycles. '…”