1 Propulsion

Different types of propulsion systems have been analyzed to choose which one could meet mission requirements, but
only two kinds of propulsion are noteworthy:
- Electric propulsion may be a suitable way to save satellite mass and deliver payloads as heavy as those required for
the mission. It requires relatively low propellant masses and is characterized by high Isp in comparison to chemical
propulsion. On the other side it implies low thrust, high power supply, long times of flight. In particular, Gridded Ion
Thrusters are considered a good solution, for their high specific impulse, even if grid erosion is a limit for engine life.
- Liquid storable propulsion guarantees relatively fast transfers and fuel storage for many years. Moreover it is
restartable, even if it is characterized by a lower specific impulse than cryogenic liquid propellants.

1.1 Manoeuvre description

To evaluate the propellant mass that is necessary for the entire life of the satellites, every manoeuvre that requires fuel
consumption has been analysed.
The worst possible launcher error in orbit insertion of the module has been examined for every manoeuvre (15 km in
altitude and 0.025° in plane inclination) because it is convenient to be conservative so that the swarm operative life can
be extended. Indeed this oversizing is necessary in order to take into consideration perturbations and thrust
misalignments in the entire swarm operative life.

A typical complete recovery manoeuvre is composed of the following phases:

- Raising to a waiting orbit 30 km above the assembly orbit (needed only with primary electrical propulsion)
- Descent to parking orbit, where lies the module (870 km for SSM and 570 km for S/C M) and change of plane
(0.025°).
- far range rendezvous, phasing and close range rendezvous (relative navigation)
- Satellite spin-up
- Docking between satellite and module
- De-spin of satellite linked to module
- Departure from parking orbit
- Arrival to assembly orbit, where lies the structure being assembled (900 km for SSM and 600 km for S/C M) and
plane change (0.025°).
- far range rendezvous, phasing and close range rendezvous (relative navigation)
- Docking between the module and the structure under construction

Besides an evaluation of the fuel needed for attitude control (slew and thrust balancing) and orbit maintenance has been
made.
The computation of the propellant consumption has been made taking into account the progressive decreasing of the
total mass of the spacecraft and assuming that each spacecraft should be able to perform five complete module recovery
manoeuvres.
As explained before, the possible propulsion for the manoeuvres is limited to chemical and electric propulsion.
The analysis of the ∆V needed for approaching and docking proves that electric propulsion is not suitable to complete
the final part of the manoeuvre due to its low thrust.

The first case considered (backup strategy) is wholly chemical propulsion, while the second one (baseline strategy) is
primary electric propulsion with secondary chemical propulsion.

In the backup case all the manoeuvres are impulsive and the altitude change is made with a Hohmann transfer; the
primary propulsion performs the altitude, the plane change and the BOB manoeuvre phase; the secondary propulsion
provide the approach, the docking to the module and the maintenance of the spacecraft attitude.

In the baseline case the electric propulsion performs the altitude and the plane change in a single manoeuvre; the
chemical propulsion performs the BOB manoeuvre phase and provide the approach, the docking to the module and the
maintenance of the spacecraft attitude.
The chemical approach with the module is calculated using an optimization of the ∆V for the first part; in the final
part the spacecraft corrects its trajectory until the satellite is in the right conditions to start the docking phase.

In the figure below the propellant consumption for the entire life of the spacecraft in this two cases is shown.
The comparison has been made using a chemical engine of 400 N of thrust and 350 s of specific impulse and an electric
engine of 0.05 N of thrust and 5000 s of specific impulse.

Propellant Consumption

1000

800
[Kg]
Mass
t
ellan 600
Prop
400

200

0
Only Chem Chem+Ele 1 manoeuvre

Chemical Mass [kg] Electrical Mass[kg]

Time To Reach The Dead Module [days]

25
20.75
20
s
ay
D 15

10

1.90E-03
0
Only Chem Chem+Ele 1 manoeuvre

Chemical propulsion can be a good choice if time requirements would be pressing. Moreover the time to reach the
module in the electric case increases of about 35% due to eclipses. When the sun is darkened there is no power to
deliver to the propulsion system and thrusters are necessarily turned off. In the electric case modules should keep the
nominal conditions that allow a safe recovery for at least 29 days.
The baseline mission optimizes the mass loaded on the spacecraft with the disadvantages of a more complicated
analysis, a long time to perform a single manoeuvre and more complicated technology embarked on the satellite.
The backup mission optimizes the easiness of trajectory analysis and the power required, reduces the manoeuvre time
but the propellant mass is about three times that of the baseline mission.
1.2 Engine Choice
BASELINE

Primary Propulsion

Electric Propulsion T5 (QuinetiQ)

T5
Pt [W] 640.00
Pdciu [W] 36.63
Pxfs [W] 18.37
Psys [W] 695.65
Isp [s] 5000.00
Xe Mass Flow [mg/s] 0.55
T max [N] 0.025
M [g] 1500.00
Mppu [g] 3000.00
Mdciu [g] 3000.00
Life Time [h] 30000.00
Thruster Size [mm] 190x190x242

The T5 is an ion thruster that uses ion

acceleration to provide the thrust. The ion
acceleration is produced by the grid and a
cathode takes care of neutralizing the ions
accelerated by the grid.
The problem of the gridded ion thrusters
is its life time because the grid and
cathode erosion reduces it drastically, in a
typical ion thrusters. T5 is equipped with
carbon-carbon grids and multi layer
cathode. These increase sensitively the
life time of the thrusters. T5 is flight
tested.
Secondary Propulsion

Chemical Propulsion LT-5N SP (Rafael)

LT-5N SP
Voltage (VDC) 24 - 32
Power (watt) 15 @ 28 VDC & 20°C
Heater Elements 3
Heater Nominal Voltage (VDC) 28
Heater Power (watt) 3 x 2.63
Propellant Hydrazine
Thrust, Steady State (Newton) 5.00
Feed Pressure (bar) 22 - 5.5
Flow Rate (gr/sec) 2.7 - 0.9
Expansion Ratio 50
Weight (gr) 230
Specific Impulse (sec) 220
Total Impulse (Newton-sec) 91,000
Total Pulses 100,000
Impulse Bit (Newton-sec) 0.12 @ 5.5 bar & 60 msec ON
Cumulative Steady State Firing Time ( sec) 14,000
Rise Time, Typical (msec) 30

LT-5N SP is a monopropellant chemical

thruster. Light, small, with a good
number of total pulses and a small rise
time. These characteristics make it
suitable for attitude control and docking
manoeuvres. LT-5N SP is flight
qualified.

BACK-UP

Primary Propulsion

Chemical Propulsion S400-20

S400-20
Thrust [N] 400
Specific Impulse [sec] 318
Propellant MON / MMH
Dry Mass [kg] 3.6
Overall length [mm] 531
Nozzle Diameter [mm] 248

S400-20, with its thrust and its specific impulse, is good for altitude, plane change and BOB
manoeuvre phase thank to its “high” specific impluse. S400-20 is flight qualified.
Secondary Propulsion

Chemical Propulsion S10-2 (Daimler-Benz)

S10-2
Thrust [N] 10
Specific Impulse [sec] 290
Propellant MON / MMH
Dry Mass [g] 530
Overall length [mm] 174
Nozzle Diameter [mm] 37

S10-2 should have the same characteristic of the LT-5N SP but should be bipropellant so that its
feed system is compatible to S400-20 one. S10-2 is flight qualified.

1.3 Thrusters Configuration

BASELINE

Primary Propulsion

T5 needs a PPU (Power Processing Unit), a DCIU (Digital Control & Interface Unit) and a XFS (Xenon Feed System).
The PPU provides to the thrusters the power needed and the DCIU manages the feed and the power system.
This is a possible scheme of the electric propulsion system.
It has been estimated that the life time needed for the mission is at least ten thousands hours, requirement fully satisfied
by T5. Anyway the choice is to have a cold redundancy, therefore is necessary to embark 4 thrusters using 2 engines
together not to have a thrust misalignment during the manoeuvres. Indeed it has been decided that each T5 should have
a dedicated DCIU to be independent from the others and be more versatile. The cabling from the feed system to the
thrusters should be redundant to have an higher system reliability.
With this configuration a problem can rise: the power required for 2 engines could exceed the peak power estimated in
the power subsystem. In this case could be necessary to lower the power delivered to the PPU.

Secondary Propulsion

For the accurate control of rendezvous trajectories, orbit adjustment, attitude control and docking manoeuvres,
restartable small thrusters are an indispensable instrument. The best choices for auxiliary propulsion could be hydrazine
monopropellant thrusters because Field Emission Electric Propulsion (FEEP) would require additional power supply
(larger solar arrays and momentum of inertia) and cold gas thrusters have too low specific impulses (50-75 sec).
For the application of pure torques about three vehicle axes a minimum of 12 fixed thrusters is required. Since these
rockets are fundamental for dockings and these manoeuvres are the most important of the mission, the disposition of the
thrusters must take into account one or more redundancies.
The following configuration of thrusters has been studied in such a way as to provide every requested force or torque
for attitude control, BOB, orbit maintenance and docking maneuvers of the satellite, with or without module.
Thirty-two hydrazine monopropellant rockets are displaced in eight groups of four. The thrusters that are displayed in
the positive x direction (the thrust vector is directed toward negative x) and those inclined of 60° on the lateral surface
of the satellite are programmed in such a way that group 1 to 4 are used when the satellite is not linked to the module
and group 5 to 8 in the other case.
In this way, the plume of hot rocket exhaust gases would not damage neither the satellite (lateral surface and solar
arrays) nor the module.
Five Newton thrusters can be a good choice to supply forces and torques required to auxiliary propulsion.
Indeed it is needed that the feed system is fully reliable and for this reason each valve is redundant.
Side thrust balancing

The final docking phases needs side thrust for trajectory keeping. When a module is attached to the satellite the rockets
have to supply a lateral thrust to balance the angular rotation introduced by the fact that the center of mass is located
inside the module. This balancing thrust goes in the opposite direction of the needed lateral direction and the worst
situation is when the propellant is almost finished (in this case the position of the center of gravity of satellite plus
module would shift toward the center of the module of about 0.5 m with respect to its nominal position).
Therefore, the lever arm between rockets and the center of gravity is maximum and to have a lateral displacement
without rotation the ∆V required should be multiplied by 5.5, because the balancing thrust wastes part of the useful
thrust. However, this multiplying factor is referred to really small (about 0.24 m/s) so it isn't necessary to find out
other ways to perform side thrust balancing. There are no reasons to search for other solutions, like, for example,
docking two satellites to each module; propellant loss due to that effect is very small, while the disadvantages of such a
strategy (one more docking port, increasing number of satellites...)are surely greater than the avantages.After all,
rockets configuration has been appropriately studied also for these tasks.

However, this multiplying factor is referred to really small ∆V so it’s not necessary to find out other ways to perform
side thrust balancing. After all, rockets configuration has been appropriately studied also for these tasks.

This example shows that to have a net force in the upper direction a smaller thrust in the opposite direction is required
to the thrusters on the left side of the figure, to balance thrust misalignment with the position of center of gravity.
The following figure shows the rockets disposition on the satellite:
 If a side thrust in the y direction is demanded for satellite with module the rockets that burn are:

xyz Schematic disposition of auxiliary rockets around the satellite with module
(red thrusters: turned on; black thrusters: turned off)
With the aim to verify redundancies, three pure forces and three pure torques about the three axes ( Fx, Fy, Fz, Mx, My,
Mz ) have been required and every time one rocket has been turned off (as if it were broken) to verify if the others could
provide the force/torque demanded. The results show that all rockets are redundant one time with or without module.
Implementing a second test in which two rockets at a time are turned off, it has been obtained that all the thrusters are
two time redundant, except the four inclined of 60° in case of satellite with module. Going on, it has been verified that
not all forces and torques about three axis are guaranteed with three rockets turned off.

BACK-UP

The back-up mission embarks only bipropellant chemical thrusters. This is a possible configuration of the thrusters.
1.4 Tank Sizing
To evaluate the volumes occupied by propellant and pressurizing gas tanks, some typical values, based on those found
on tanks data sheets, have been supposed:

Xenon Hydrazine Helium MON MMH Helium

T [K] 290 293 293 293 293 293
p [bar] 100 25 275 25 25 275

Tank sizing is different for baseline and backup, because of the different nature of propulsion systems in the two cases.
Helium is the gas chosen in both situations to pressurize liquid propellants, because it is inactive and its molecular mass
is very low (mm=4.0026 kg/mol). Tank volumes are calculated from propellant volumes loaded into each tank, adding a
5% margin for ullage. Than, a 20% margin on liquid propellant tanks has been applied to consider the propellant
volume remaining at end-of-life (residual propellant) and density changes with temperature.
The results are shown in the following table:

Baseline 600 Xenon Hydrazine Helium Backup 600 MON MMH Helium
m [kg] 41.25 213.53 1.98 m [kg] 625.31 275.47 7.31
V[dm^3] 75.74 262.99 43.92 V [dm^3] 575.11 394.42 161.91
Baseline 900 Xenon Hydrazine Helium Backup 900 MON MMH Helium
m [kg] 41.20 211.78 1.96 m [kg] 640.39 282.11 7.49
V [dm^3] 75.65 260.84 43.56 V [dm^3] 588.97 403.93 165.81

Tanks are all made of a Titanium-Aluminium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) because it has an high tensile ultimate and yield
strength (Ftu and Fty respectively) and have all spherical shape. Their thickness is respectively:

Helium Hydrazine Xenon

p [bar] 275 25 100
r [m] 0.1493 0.2507 0.2497
Ftu [N/m^2] 9.0E8 9.0E8 9.0E8
thickness [mm] 2.28 0.34 1.38

For the backup MON tank has a cylindrical shape, while MMH and Helium are spherical:

Helium (1) MON (1) Helium (6) MMH (6)

p [bar] 275 25 275 25
r [m] 0.296 0.45 0.1436 0.2411
Ftu [N/m^2] 9.0E8 9.0E8 9.0E8 9.0E8
thickness [mm] 4.52 1.25 2.19 0.33

1.5 De-Orbiting
The strategy of end-of-life, since the formation orbits not so far from the Earth, expects to let the spacecrafts burn in the
atmosphere after a de-orbiting manoeuvre.
The manoeuvre can be performed applying the thrust in the opposite direction of the velocity only in one point of the
circular orbit to make it elliptic. The perigee of the new orbit is 300 km and the apogee should be lower of almost 20 km
than the radius of the assembling orbit so that the decay doesn’t disturb the assembled station. The perigee is 300 km
because the spacecraft in the elliptic orbit is not under the influence of strong drag for the entire period. In this way the
satellite burns within 20 years. The braking can be done with the electrical propulsion, instead it is worthwhile doing the
lowering of the apogee with the chemical propulsion because the propellant consumption is low and the manoeuvre
time became almost negligible.
The strategy is both for the baseline and backup mission.
 BASELINE

Elliptic S/C M Chemical Electric

Kg of prop [kg] 4.07 2.34
Manouvre Time [years] 5.16E-06 0.87
Total Decay Time about 2 years
Elliptic SSM Chemical Electric
Kg of prop [kg] 3.82 4.69
Manouvre Time [years] 4.85E-06 1.74
Total Decay Time about 5 years

BACK-UP

Elliptic S/C M Chemical

Kg of prop [kg] 57.39
Manouvre Time [hours] 0.63
Total Decay Time About 1 year
Elliptic SSM Chemical
Kg of prop [kg] 120.35
Manouvre Time [hours] 1.33
Total Decay Time about 3 years

1.6 Overall Dimensions

As final consideration, a summary of all masses and sizes of the propulsion system for baseline and backup mission is
shown in the following tables:

Baseline 600 Total masses Backup 600 Total masses

T5 Mass [kg] 6 S400-20 Mass [kg] 3.6
PPU Mass [kg] 12 S10-2 Mass [kg] 14.84
DCIU Mass [kg] 12 MON Mass [kg] 625.31
XFS Mass [kg] 13.00 MMH Mass [kg] 275.47
LT-5N SP Mass [kg] 6.44 Helium Mass [kg] 7.31
Xenon Mass[kg] 41.25 MON Tank Mass [kg] 93.79
Hydrazine Mass [kg] 213.53 MMH Tank Mass [kg] 41.32
Helium Mass [kg] 1.98 He Tank Mass [kg] 1.46
Xe Tank Mass [kg] 6.18
N2H4 Tank Mass [kg] 32.02
He Tank Mass [kg] 0.39
TOTAL MASS [kg] 344.81 TOTAL MASS [kg] 1063.12
Baseline 900 Total Backup 900 Total
masses masses
T5 Mass [kg] 6 S400-20 Mass [kg] 3.6
PPU Mass [kg] 12 S10-2 Mass [kg] 14.84
DCIU Mass [kg] 12 MON Mass [kg] 640.39
XFS Mass [kg] 13 MMH Mass [kg] 282.11
LT-5N SP Mass [kg] 6.44 Helium Mass [kg] 7.49
Xenon Mass[kg] 41.2 MON Tank Mass [kg] 96.05
Hydrazine Mass [kg] 211.78 MMH Tank Mass [kg] 42.31
Helium Mass [kg] 1.96 He Tank Mass [kg] 1.49
Xe Tank Mass [kg] 6.18
N2H4 Tank Mass [kg] 31.76
He Tank Mass [kg] 0.39

TOTAL MASS [kg] 342.72 TOTAL MASS [kg] 1088.31

Masses of all components of propulsion system

Baseline 600 Measures [mm] Volume [dm^3]

T5 190x190x242
PPU (each) 200x200x200
DCIU (each) 300x250x200
XFS 200x100x100 plus feed
LT-5N SP 135x60x60
Xe Tank 75.74
N2H4 Tank 262.99
He Tank 43.92

Backup 600 Measures [mm] Volume [dm^3]

S400-20 531x248x248
S10-2 174x37x37
MON Tank 575.11
MMH Tank 394.42
He Tank 161.91

Baseline 900 Measures [mm] Volume [dm^3]

T5 190x190x242
PPU (each) 200x200x200
DCIU (each) 300x250x200
XFS 200x100x100 plus feed
LT-5N SP 135x60x60
Xe Tank 41.2
N2H4 Tank 211.78
He Tank 43.56
 Backup 900 Measures [mm] Volume [dm^3]
S400-20 531x248x248
S10-2 174x37x37
MON 588.97
MMH 403.93
He 165.81

Encumbrances of all components of propulsion system

References

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