Backgrounds and trends of all-electric propulsion geostationary satellites creation

Due to the increasing of demand for spaceсrafts, capable, at a relatively low launch mass, being injected into geostationary orbit by the launch vehicles is not equipped with apogee upper stage, as well as due to the trend of using middle class launch vehicles for the group launch of geostationary satellites, spacecraft manufacturers worldwide seek capabilities for reducing of fuel reserves for apogee maneuver, replacing the usual two-component chemical engines by the electric thrusters or combining them. However, the proposed schemes of all-electric propulsion systems have obvious disadvantages, due to the need of finding a compromise between the high power consumption of electrostatic or electromagnetic thrusters and low specific impulse resistojets, as well as the difficulties associated with the long-term presence in the area of Van-Allen radiation belts during his transfer to the operational orbit using electric thrusters, which negatively affects its reliability and degrades the mass efficiency of spacecraft equipment. In this paper the authors consider a different concept of all-electric propulsion platforms for spacecraft in geostationary orbit and provides a comparative analysis of these concepts with the existing combination shemes used for spacecrafts of JSC “Academician M.F. Reshetnev “Information Satellite Systems". Competitive advantage of the combined system of jet propulsion produced by JSC «ISS» over the prospective all-electric propulsion systems is justified. However, due to the impossibility to use for launching satellites with a JSC «ISS»’s combined propulsion system into geostationary orbit using foreign launch vehicles not equipped with apogee upper stage, there is a need to apply as part of the spacecraft apogee engine that capable of providing increase of the transfer orbit perigee to an altitude preventing from the spacecraft presence in the area of Van-Allen radiation belts. The feasible mass performances of a middle-class satellite with hybrid orbit transfer propulsion system and compatible with foreign launchers are assigned. The main trends of all-electric propulsion systems development, associated primarily with the transfer scheme, used by different spacecrafts for injection in geostationary orbit are specified.