N° étudiant : …………………..

PAGE DE GARDE – SUJET D’EXAMEN

Année universitaire 2017-2018

Classe : AERO 5
Type d’examen : PARTIEL / RATTRAPAGE /
SUBSTITUTION
Matière : Propulsion par énergies alternatives
Code matière : En 506
Date : …………………
Horaire : …………………
Durée : 1h
Enseignant : S. Mazouffre
Documents autorisés : NON
Ordinateur autorisé : NON
Calculatrices autorisées : OUI mais non programmable

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Electric Propulsion (S. Mazouffre)
Questions (5 pts)

Why is the small satellite (m < 500 kg) market increasing fast nowadays?

What are the 3 main groups of EP devices? Indicate the mechanism at the origin of the thrust for each
of them.

Exercise (12 pts)

A 20 kg dry mass satellite is equipped with a FEEP thruster to perform a transfer in LEO. The total ∆v
accumulated over maneuver duration is 0.9 km/s. The Isp delivered by the thruster amounts to 3500 s.
What is the total mass of propellant used for the orbit transfer?
What is the volume of the propellant reservoir?
The thruster operates for a total duration of 55 days. What is the propellant mass flow rate?
Compute the thrust, the mechanical power and the total impulse assuming a 100 % ionization efficiency.
The input power furnished to the EP unit is 200 W. What is the thrust efficiency?
The FEEP engine solely produces singly-charged In+ ions, the latter being accelerated through a 10 cm
diameter circular electrode. What is the ion current and the ion current density?

Data
Indium density ρ = 7.31 g/cm3
e = 1.6×10-19 C
Indium ion (In+) atomic mass = 114.8 amu
1 amu = 1.66×10-27 kg

EP system performances (3 pts)

According to the figure below, and using what you have learnt, what is the most appropriate thruster for:
- Orbit transfer?
- Drag compensation?
Justify your answer.

Figure 1: Thrust-to-power ratio against specific impulse for several types of EP devices.
Lines indicate the theoretical curves for 3 values of the efficiency.
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