GlennNASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Integrated Mission Design Center (IMDC)

This work describes the flywheel technology, which can be used for energy storage and for attitude controls. Presently many spacecraft use attitude control wheels, however they only use the power bus as an energy source and to dump excessive energy during despin maneuvers. The emergence of the flywheel technology with different wheel geometry, composite rotors, magnetic bearings and operation at higher speeds will provide deliberate power discharge on to the spacecraft power bus. This technology has many possible benefits such as improved power efficiency, longer life, enhanced agility and reduced weight. This technology also breaks down the subsystem engineering partitions by collateral combining EPS and ACS attributes into a single device. New ways are needed to design and develop shared entities. This paper reviews the IMDC studies for flywheel applications and will show the mass impact and enhanced capability of incorporating flywheels. The attitude control and energy storage requirements will be categorized to identify prospective flywheel requirements. Flywheel attributes will be explained and EPS and ACS subsystem requirements identified. A flywheel sizing design tool will be developed and demonstrated. This will interlink the electrical power system (EPS) design with attitude control system (ACS) design. Different rotor geometry will be explored with varied speeds to produce momentum, energy and torque attributes for spacecraft studies. Existing flywheel devices and designed will be researched. This paper will develop possible ground testing for space qualification and spacecraft check out possibilities.