Solar Electric Propulsion on ESPA-class satellite

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp participated in a Space Act Agreement with NASA GRC to determine the feasibility of accommodating enough Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) on the Ball ESPA-class bus to result in a mission of interest to Ball customers. The baseline for the study was the ESPA-class BCP-100 bus. Since the BCP-100 bus has flight heritage on USAF programs, the approach for the study was to use the existing bus design and minimize changes to only those necessary to accommodate the SEP system. This approach maintains high heritage and minimizes the amount of Non-Recurring Engineering required for the bus. High heritage components were also selected for the SEP system when available, including an off-the-shelf Xenon tank, existing cathode, HET thruster and Xenon feed control, allowing future development funding to be focused on a PPU compatible with the existing BCP-100 28 V power bus. The results of the study show that while meeting the ESPA envelope and mass requirements, the BCP-100 can accommodate enough SEP capability to allow the orbit to be raised or lowered anywhere within LEO or change the inclination up to 10° from a LEO starting point. From a GTO starting point, an elliptical orbit with apogee at GEO is also possible.