Planetary Mission Capability of Small Low Power Solar Electric Propulsion Systems

Abstract Planetary mission performance is presented for small, low power Solar Electric Propulsion spacecraft launched on a Delta II (7925) launch vehicle. The planetary missions presented in this paper are those that appear most attractive for a small, lowcost solar electric propulsion mission. These missions include comet and main belt asteroid rendezvous and high energy outer solar system flyby missions, all requiring a large ΔV commitment from the propulsion system. The outer solar system missions include solar probe missions using a Jupiter gravity assist and flyby missions to small outer solar system bodies. Included in this paper are examples of heliocentric transfer trajectories and estimates of performance for selected targets for each class of mission.