Development of an Application for Assessing Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion Feasibility in Very-Low Earth Orbits

• Autor(a) principal: Coutinho, Raquel Fecha
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/14138
• topic: Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion; Estudo de VI-Abilidade; Matlab®; Órbitas Terrestres Muito Baixas; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Aeronáutica

Very-low Earth orbits offer numerous advantages for Earth observation missions, including improved resolution and reduced cost. However, lowering spacecraft orbits introduces certain operational challenges such as: higher atmospheric density and, consequently, increased atmospheric drag and power demand. Conventional electrical propulsion struggles to sustain VLEO missions for extended periods due to the substantial drag that depletes onboard propellant. Therefore, air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) has emerged as a promising technology by utilizing the surrounding air for thrust generation and reducing reliance on onboard propellants. However, the performance of electric thrusters worsens due to the need to collect the atmosphere in free-molecular regime through an intake system. Additionally, atmospheric species have inferior performance in thrust generation compared to typical propellants like xenon. This thesis aims to identify the requirements for sustaining a spacecraft’s orbit in VLEO and assess the feasibility of utilizing state-of-the-art ABEP technology for this purpose. To achieve this, a MATLAB® application was developed to characterize the very-low environment and compute the required performance to operate in a sun-synchronous mission specified by the user. GOCE mission that orbited in very-low altitudes was replicated by the app and its outputs were validated by comparing them to the reported flight data. Moreover, the simulation outcomes provided valuable insights into the feasibility of incorporating airbreathing electric thrusters in missions similar to GOCE’s.