"Electric propulsion is an industry-recognized key discriminator for some satellite systems," said Mary Kriebel, TRW manager for the Propulsion Systems Engineering section. "Recent improvements in space power systems have made electric propulsion feasible, and the fuel efficiency of electric propulsion makes these systems highly desirable.

"The demand for electric propulsion systems is growing rapidly in the coming decades, especially for telecommunications satellites," Kriebel added. "CEPTS is a key ingredient in keeping TRW on top of, and competitive with, evolving electric propulsion technology."

CEPTS was developed to provide the space-like vacuum conditions necessary for testing various electric propulsion thrusters, such as Hall Effect Thrusters and pulsed plasma thrusters. The facility features a test cell approximately 7 feet in diameter and 17 feet long, and has three 48-inch cryogenic vacuum pumps to allow the chamber to maintain very high vacuum levels while a thruster is operating.

The company-funded facility is also being outfitted with an autonomous data acquisition and control system that will allow unmanned operation and data collection during long-duration testing. System life testing can demand in excess of 5,000 hours, requiring automation in test control and data acquisition. Opened last month, the facility operated successfully the first time it performed thruster testing.

Electric thrusters have much higher specific impulse than chemical thrusters, and provide two to three times more fuel efficiency than chemical thrusters. Higher fuel efficiency means that not as much propellant is needed on-board, allowing spacecraft designers to reduce overall spacecraft weight and launch costs or to add more weight and capability to the payload.

Electric propulsion is applicable for multiple types of in-space missions, ranging from inserting spacecraft into specific orbits to repositioning spacecraft, stationkeeping, constellation management, and on occasion, deorbitting a spacecraft.

TRW has conducted electric propulsion research and development for many years. Under Air Force funding, TRW headed an industrial team that delivered a flight arcjet system for integration onto the Air Force's Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite. TRW is now conducting sponsored and internally-supported efforts to develop selected electric propulsion technologies.

TRW

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