The Electric Propulsion Experiment (EPEX) is a Japanese space experiment program for the quasi-steady MPD thruster system. The EPEX is planned to be tested on a Japanese free flying platform and launched in the 1990s. The requirements for the control and monitor subsystem of EPEX were discussed and the conceptual design was performed. Since 1983, repetitive charging and discharging operations for the ground endurance tests were conducted with the sequence controllers, which were made of hard wired logic circuits. Photo transistors were found to be preferable for recognition of the occurance of arc discharge and the normal termination of the repetitive cycle. For the EPEX, because of the limited capability of the platform bus system, the autonomous operation of the experiment is required in addition to the simple sequence control. The autonomous operation with a microcomputer system will be tested in the next ground endurance test to be started from Oct. 1987.
Development of control and monitor subsystem for electric propulsion experiment onboard space flyer unit (SFU)
Entwicklung der Regel- uknd Ueberwachungssysteme fuer das Elektroantriebsexperiment an Bord der Space Flyer Unit (SFU)
AIAA-Papers ; May ; 1-5
1987
5 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 3 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Electric Propulsion Experiment onboard Space Flyer Unit
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