Abstract
Chapter 6 describes the operation tasks of the various subsystems of a classic unmanned satellite in Earth orbits.
The first section deals with the Telemetry, Commanding, and Ranging Subsystem which allows the radio frequency transmission of remote monitoring and control information of a spacecraft. The next section describes the operations of the On-Board Data-Handling Subsystem, i.e., the spacecraft components that handle the on-board distribution and processing of data. The third section is about operations of the Power and Thermal Subsystem including energy sources, management, and storage for as well as heat sources, transfer, and dissipation. This is followed by a section on operating the propulsion subsystem including principles, configuration, real time, and offline operations. The last section, finally, depicts the operations of the Attitude and Orbit Control System.
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Notes
- 1.
In general, a spacecraft bus consists of a Command and Data Handling System, a Communications system and the appropriate antennas, an Electrical Power System, a Propulsion System, Thermal Control, an Attitude and Orbit Control System, a Guidance, Navigation and Control System, as well as a structure and trusses that holds everything together. A subset is the power bus mentioned here which connects the solar panels and battery with a unit called the Power Control and Distribution Unit (PCDU).
- 2.
Destruction of the semiconducting material but also degradation of the covering glass.
- 3.
Oxidation (loss of electrons) and reduction (gaining of electrons) in each half cell (one electrode and its surrounding electrolyte).
- 4.
Although in colloquial terms a battery can also refer to a single cell like the ones you can buy in the supermarket. Even those often consist of more than one cell.
- 5.
For example from a 100 Ah (ampere hours) battery a current of 1 A could be drawn for 100 h, or a current of 100 A for 1 h (or combinations thereof).
- 6.
First used in 1977 on the NTS-2 satellite.
- 7.
Energy efficiency defines how well the stored chemical energy is converted into electrical energy.
- 8.
Hydrocarbons are also used as fuel, but the main differentiator is the type of electrolyte used. These range from solutions to polymers and ceramic oxides.
- 9.
The Juno mission to Jupiter launched on August 5, 2011, is a notable exception. The spacecraft is powered by large solar arrays.
- 10.
NASA is working on a combination of radioisotopes as heat source and a Stirling engine for the energy conversion called a Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG). Such a system promises a fourfold increase in efficiency to about 30 %.
- 11.
Since the radiated heat needs to be equal to the generated heat large radiators can be seen where a lot of power is generated, i.e., on space stations or designs for nuclear spacecraft such as the canceled JIMO mission.
- 12.
“1000” since the resistance at 0 °C is 1,000 Ω.
- 13.
The index of utilization of the battery is the Depth of Discharge (DoD). This is the amount of charge drained from the battery expressed as a percentage of its rated capacity.
- 14.
A satellite bus or spacecraft bus is the general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based. The bus is the infrastructure of a spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload (typically space experiments or instruments).
- 15.
Since cos (30°) = 0.86.
- 16.
Example: BOL Capacity = 20 Ah, degradation = 5 %, so the battery can only be charged up to 95 % = 19 Ah. So, one could set the maximum capacity level to 95 % to avoid overcharge and therefore thermal effects. It should be noted that for Nickel–Hydrogen batteries, a slight overcharge is actually desired.
- 17.
For low-earth orbit satellites with polar orbit.
- 18.
g 0=9.80665 m/s2.
- 19.
Also named after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian scientist who derived this relation at the end of the nineteenth century.
- 20.
For example the state equation of an ideal gas reads PV = nRT, where P denotes the gas pressure [Pa], V its volume [m3], n its number of moles [mol], and T its temperature [K]. R = 8.314 J mol−1 K−1 is the ideal gas constant.
References
References to Sect. 6.1
Bryant, S., Berner, J., Operations Comparison of Deeps Space Ranging Types: Sequential Tone vs. Pseudo-Noise, 2002 I.E. Aerospace Conference, 2002.
Bullock, S., Transceiver System Design for Digital Communications, Noble Publishing 1995, 1-884932-46-0
ECSS 50-04C Space Data Links - Telecommand Protocols Synchronization and Channel Coding, July 2008.
Reynolds, M.K., Reinhart, M.J., Bokulic, R.S., Bryant, S.: A Two-Way Noncoherent Ranging Technique for Deep Space Missions, 2002 I.E. Aerospace Conference, 2002.
References to Sect. 6.2
Bussinger, S.D. et al., Spacecraft Erasable Disk Mass Memory (EDMM), 7th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites 1993
CCSDS 132.0-B-1, TM Space Data Link Protocol.
CCSDS 133.0-B-1, Space Packet Protocol
ECSS 70-41A Telemetry and Telecommand Packet Utilization Standard, 2003 ECSS
Evans, TM, D. and Moschini, U., “Ten Times More Information in your Real-time”, Chapter 14 in Space Operations: Experience, Mission Systems and Advanced Concepts, Schmidhuber, Cruzen, Kehr (editors), AIAA 2013, ISBN 978-1-62410-207-3
“MA28140 Packet Telecommand Decoder”; Dynex Semiconductor; Publication No. DS3839-6 Issue No. 6.1 June 2000
sana - Space Assigned Number Authority – [cited 28.02.2014]. Available from http://sanaregistry.org/
References to Sect. 6.3
Deng, X. and Schiff, E. A., Amorphous Silicon-based Solar Cells. In: Antonio Luque and Steven Hegedus, editors, Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering. Wiley, 2002
Spacecraft Battery Technology, Robert A. Nelson, Via Satellite, 1999
Laidler, K. J., Chemical Kinetics, Third Edition, Harper & Row, 1987, p.42
Tapley, B. D., Bettadpur, S., Watkins, M., Reigber, C., The gravity recovery and climate experiment: Mission overview and early results, Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 31, No. 9, 2004
References to Sect. 6.4
Fortescue, P., Swinerd, G., Stark, J. “Spacecraft Systems Engineering” Fourth Edition, Wiley, 2011.
References to Sect. 6.6
Berlin, P.: Satellite Plattform Design, 5th Edition, Department of Space Science, University of Luleà and Umeà, Kiruna Schweden, ISBN 91-631-4917-6, January 2005
Bostian-Allnutt, P.: Satellite Communications, ISBN 0-471-37007, Wiley, 2003
Handbook on Satellite Communications, 3nd Edition, ISBN 0-471-22189-9, Wiley 2002
Maral, G., Bousquet, M.: Satellite Communications Systems, 4th Edition, 2002 Wiley, ISBN 0-471-49654-5, April 2002
Wikipedia “Sputnik 1” – [cited 21.02.2014]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
Wikipedia “Syncom” – [cited 21.02.2014]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncom
Wikipedia “Telstar” – [cited 21.02.2014]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar
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Schmidhuber, M. et al. (2015). Spacecraft Subsystem Operations. In: Uhlig, T., Sellmaier, F., Schmidhuber, M. (eds) Spacecraft Operations. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1803-0_6
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