14 DAY TRIAL // Demonstrating solar electric propulsion technologies, capabilities and infrastructure in space is one of the main objectives that need to be reached before humans can establish a presence there. Engineers with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. have just submitted such a mission concept study to NASA.
Their proposal seeks to demonstrate that solar electric propulsion (SEP) technologies can be successfully used in space. Ball Aerospace is one of five companies that received $600,000 in NASA funds in September last year, for developing such a concept.
The American space agency wants a sustainable and affordable human presence in space, and SEP is central to this plan. Experts at NASA could use the new mission concept to develop and launch flight demonstrators capable of testing the efficiency of the new propulsion technology.
For the new proposal, Ball Aerospace worked together with a number of other institutions and companies, including ATK Space Systems, in Busek Colorado, Deployable Space Systems, Gray Research Inc., and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), in San Antonio, Texas.
“Ball Aerospace recognizes the mission enabling aspect of solar electric propulsion and our customer needs for SEP solutions. We believe we’re the right-sized company with the right capabilities to take this space technology to the next level,” says Cary Ludtke.
The official holds an appointment as the vice president of Ball Aerospace's Civil and Operational Space business unit. She adds that the SEP technology proposal operates at NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or higher, as the American space agency instructed.
The overall goal NASA pursues is the creation of very efficient and powerful spaceflight systems, powered entirely by the Sun. Current solar panel technologies are not that useful to missions going deep within the solar system, beyond the orbits of Jupiter or Saturn, for example.
Ball Aerospace is an important contractor for the US Department of Defense (DOD), NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other US government agencies.