Mission Analysis Involving Hall Thruster For On-Orbit Servicing

Launched in October 2019, Northrop Grumman's MEV-1 was the world's first unmanned mission demonstrating the practical feasibility of on-orbit servicing. Although the concept of on-orbit servicing was proposed several decades ago, it has been developed to various mission concepts providing services such as orbit change, station keeping, propellant and equipment supply, upgrade, repair, on-orbit assembly and production, and space debris removal. The historical success of MEV-1 is expected to expand the market of on-orbit servicing for government agencies and commercial sectors worldwide. The on-orbit servicing essentially requires the utilization of a highly propellant efficient electric propulsion system due to the nature of the mission. In this study, the space mission analysis for a simple on-orbit mission involving Hall thruster is conducted, which is life extension mission for geostationary orbit satellites. In order to analyze the mission, design space exploration for various Hall thruster design variable combinations is performed. The values of design variables and operational parameters of Hall thruster suitable for the mission are proposed through design space analysis and optimization, and mission performance is derived. In addition, the direction of further improvement for the current on-orbit mission analysis process and space mission analysis involving Hall thruster is reviewed.