SRC-190

The Applicability of MPD Thrusters to Satellite Power Systems

Commissioned by NASA JPL. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0700 A 1980 JPL paper already worked out how to move a two-thousand-tonne payload from low orbit to high orbit using electric thrusters. It needed 150 megawatts of electrical power and took between 160 and 213 days depending on which thruster was used. The magnetoplasmadynamic option needed only 23 thrusters against 920 to 2,000 for the ion options.
• CLM-0701 The 1980 study assumes each kilogram being moved has 75 watts of electrical power pushing it. One real electric satellite manages between about 2 and 9 watts per kilogram of its whole launch weight. The study's figure is 8 to 33 times that, but it counts only the cargo, so on a like-for-like count the gap would be smaller. That assumption, more than the thruster type, is why its travel times look so short for such a huge payload.
• CLM-0702 Electric trips from a low orbit to a high one took four to seven months on real flights and in most models held here, and NASA's four-month figure is at the fast end of that. One European study expects at least 20 months for its modules, because the time depends on how much thrust each tonne gets.

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