Aerojet Rocketdyne Delivers Solar Electric Thrusters

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a GenCorp company, has shipped the first set of four solar electric propulsion (SEP) thrusters for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R).

 

Supplied by the company’s Redmond, Wash., Space Systems business unit, the SEP thrusters were sent to NASA's Stennis Space Center where Lockheed Martin will integrate them, associated power conditioning units, and electrical cabling with the GOES-R spacecraft. It then will be shipped to Lockheed Martin's facility near Denver Colo. where it will undergo final integration and testing. The completed satellite ultimately will be shipped to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to support a planned late 2015 or early 2016 launch on an Atlas V 541 launch vehicle. 

 

The GOES-R SEP thrusters are commonly referred to as arcjet thrusters. Arcjet thrusters use the electric power generated by the spacecraft's solar arrays to generate and sustain an electric arc inside a hydrazine rocket engine, boosting the performance of the engine by a factor of three. The arcjet thrusters enable launch of the GOES-R satellite on an Atlas V 541, which is said to result in substantial launch cost savings over an all-chemical propulsion system.

 

"Aerojet Rocketdyne pioneered the use of SEP on commercial, NASA, and DoD satellites, and we are excited to now extend these mission cost savings advantages to NASA, NOAA and the GOES series of weather satellites," says Warren M. Boley, Jr., Aerojet Rocketdyne president. 

 

The GOES-R series is a collaborative development and acquisition effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. The GOES-R satellite will provide continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth's Western Hemisphere and space weather monitoring, resulting in more timely and accurate weather forecasts. It will improve support for the detection and observations of meteorological phenomena.