ELECTRIC ORBIT RAISING AND SPACE RENDEZVOUS ON GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE SIMULATION

• Main Author: Tama Dhastira, Nicko
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/23471
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Many new satellites are launched to replace old satellites that cannot be operationalized anymore because the fuel for station keeping runs out. The space industry considers this a problem due to the high cost of manufacturing and launching new satellites. One solution to this problem is to send an additional fuel carrier satellite from the earth to stick to the target satellite which fuel has run out. To achieve this, it is necessary that the fuel-carrier satellites to be equipped with an electric propulsion engine due to lower fuel consumption than chemical propulsion engines. Satellites carrying additional fuel will perform the orbit raising which continues on the space rendezvous process with the target satellite. Electric propulsion machine produces smaller thrust compared to chemical propulsion machine, therefore the method of orbit raising and space rendezvous used will be different. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The purpose of this research is to simulate and analyze the process of orbit raising and space rendezvous using electric thruster which varied. In this research, the orbital dynamics model of both processes can show the motion of objects in orbit. This model will study the effect of electric thruster type used for the process of orbit raising and space rendezvous. After the research, it was found that the thruster with the largest Isp value would spend the least amount of fuel compared to other thruster types and thrusters with the greatest thrust value would perform the fastest orbit raising process.