INNOVATIVE DELTA QUALIFICATION APPROACH FOR ELECTRIC PROPULSION SYSTEMS

The current medium power PPS®5000 thruster unit which equips several satellites uses xenon as its propellant.

However due to a sharp rise in costs and an emerging shortage of xenon, significant impacts on the economics of certain future mission profiles such as those planned for the replacement of current geostationary (GEO) telecommunication satellites are expected. It is thus necessary to seek alternative more abundant and cheaper propellant alternatives such as krypton.

However, today there is no European thruster available on the market in the range 2.5 to 5 kW qualified to be used with krypton.

The replacement of xenon by krypton would normally require a full qualification comprising many hours years of ground testing to be performed prior to obtain the ‘ready for flight’ status as required by the current ECSS standards.

This full qualification serves to provide a high level of confidence in the thrusters operational abilities but it is a timely and costly process.INVICTUS proposes to implement a delta-qualification approach to extend the qualification status of an established electrical propulsion system.

The successful acceptance of this approach by the satellite integrator and operators, will be an important stepping stone to help future programs towards a clear evolution in the ECSS standards.

It will also be possible to generalize this approach to changes not only limited to propellant or cathode emitter material, but will help address other future potential modifications driven by innovation such as changes in discharge chamber wall material or electro-magnet coils settings.By the end of project, the PPS ®5000 will be ready for flight (TRL8) using krypton, a worldwide first-of-a-kind based on two delta qualifications exercises (xenon to krypton with the necessary adaptations to the fluidic regulator and PPU NG2, and a change from an Asian to an EU supplier for the Cathode emitter) allowing the deployment of these thruster units by 2026.