par Sarritzu, Alberto;Blondel-Canepari, Lily;Gelain, Riccardo ;Hendrick, Patrick ;Pasini, Angelo
Référence Space Propulsion Conference(8th: 09-13 May 2022: Estoril, Portugal)
Publication Publié, 2022-05-09
Publication dans des actes
Résumé : As an emerging trend, Green Propulsion has been exponentially growing over the last decades in the space sector. This paper assesses different technologies in a trade-off study weighting their applicability to a specific class of upper stage systems, currently developed by many companies and often referred to as kick-stages or orbital stages. In a generic two-stage-to-orbit scenario, many launchers require a system able to go the ‘extra-mile’ to deliver one or multiple payloads on orbit(s). That is where the kick stage comes into playing a crucial role. The trade-off study reported here is based on a well-known decision-making tool, the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The main results are a technologies evaluation framework, strongly requirements-oriented, that allows to select the most promising candidates for various scenarios, and a preliminary technology selection. The screening is divided into liquid low-thrust class engines, usually employed for attitude and reaction control thrusters; and liquid high-thrust engines such as hypergolic bi-propellants combinations, commonly used for apogee manoeuvres. Finally, the evaluation framework is tested on Hybrid thrusters to examine its flexibility in a dedicated parallel trade-off.