High Power Electric Propulsion: MARS plus EUROPA – Already Beyond 2025!

It’s mid-term realization plus global strategic investments: the results of the European Russian DEMOCRITOS project (Horizon 2020) related to the MW class INPPS (International Nuclear Power and Propulsion System) flagship will be described. INPPS flagship includes high power electric thrusters cluster, supplied electric power by the nuclear reactor (successfully tested in Russia) and a solar power ring. Two INPPS versions were studied – the wide and arrow wing versions. Both versions have a futuristic design with standardized interfaces for several flagship subsystems. Especially the high payload mass of INPPS allows the transport of – for example – up to 12 t to JUPITER moon EUROPA and about 18 t to MARS – as a function of specific impulse of electric thrusters. INPPS flagship not only allows scientific, but especially commercial and communication payloads as well. This means industrial-scale production of space flight systems for robotic and human space exploration. International cooperation related to INPPS realization are necessary within an International High Power Space Transportation program to realize the DEMOCRITOS core, ground and space components until 2025. DEMOCRITOS project included partners from Europe, Russia and a Brazilian guest observer and received several inputs from NASA Cleveland and JAXA Tokyo

Development of ion thruster IT-500

A high-power ion thruster IT-500 was designed, manufactured and tested at Keldysh Research Center within a transport-power module project. This module is being designed to perform near-Earth space and interplanetary transport missions. In its nominal operation mode, IT-500 provides thrust in the range from 375 to 750 mN at specific impulse of 70 000 m/s and thrust efficiency of 0.75. Due to a high cost of the experimental testing of a large thruster, the emphasis was placed on the numerical optimization of the thruster design. The thruster completed performance tests and a 300 h wear test. The output characteristics of the thruster, obtained during the tests, confirmed the correctness of the provisional numerical optimization. IT-500 design, performance, and validation of the design approaches are discussed in this paper

INPPS Flagship: Cluster of Electric Thrusters

This paper describes the results of the European-Russian DEMOCRITOS and MEGAHIT projects related to the electric thrusters on board the International Nuclear Power and Propulsion System (INPPS) flagship. INPPS flagship is a high power space transportation hybrid tug (power supply primary by nuclear power, by auxiliary solar power ring and chemical propulsion due to subsystems transport for assembly at high Earth orbit above 800 km) for Mars, Europa, Moon and asteroid exploration flights. In dependence from the actual exploration mission, mission phases, trajectory, and preferred international high power electric thrusters (about 20 - 50 kW) with different specific impulse, the results will be discussed in detail - also as a function of the transportable payload mass. Because of the 1 MWe nuclear reactor (successful ground based test confirmed by Russia in 2018) as the power supply for INPPS a cluster of about 15 or more electric thrusters were studied in the DEMOCRITOS project for MARS and EUROPA INPPS flagships. Issues related to power processing units for the electric thrusters were identified and will be discussed. In addition, low power (kW) electric thrusters for an INPPS flagship co-flying small inspection satellite are sketched too. Insofar the presentation is directly highlighting aspects of disruptive electric propulsion subsystems, within the INPPS space system and applied to visionary Mars (including non-human and human) and Europa exploration and space transport tug flights