Author Topic: Solar Electric OTV  (Read 1427 times)

Offline JasonAW3

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Solar Electric OTV
« on: 06/09/2017 04:03 pm »
I have a weird question;

      Has anyone ever thought about the possibility of using a Solar Electric Orbital Transfer Vehicle to move payloads from LEO to GEO?

      It seems to me, the only issues would be the actual refueling on orbit of the OTV and the time it would take to put it into it's proper orbit.  on orbit refueling, via robotics has already been demonstrated on the ISS, and, due to the nonvolatile nature of most Solar Electric fuels, should be fairly safe.

      Once at GEO orbit, the OTV could release its load, move to a dead GEO sat, latch onto it and deorbit it, releasing it long enough in advance that it could change its orbit, (the OTV) into a LEO rendezvous orbit, where it would run diagnostics, pick up a new payload, and refuel from the small tank brought up with the new payload.

     This should allow far larger payloads to GEO for the approximate same fuel cost, as it would take to boost a smaller load from launch to GEO.
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Offline whitelancer64

Re: Solar Electric OTV
« Reply #1 on: 06/09/2017 04:38 pm »
Short answer: yes, since the 60s at least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tug

The issue is, and always has been, the fuel required to change orbits. The tug would need to be constantly refueled, requiring many launches from Earth. It's more efficient to just put the fuel on the satellite going to GEO (or wherever) in the first place.
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Offline jeffreycornish

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Re: Solar Electric OTV
« Reply #2 on: 06/09/2017 04:40 pm »
another resource
http://www.astronautix.com/o/otv.html

Specifically the SOTV
Solar-Powered Orbital Transfer Vehicle, 1998

https://carlkop.home.xs4all.nl/sotv.html

https://www.google.com/search?q=nasa+sotv

It seems to have fallen prey to the "No Bucks, no Buck Rogers" issue

http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/courses/aoe4065/OldReports/sotv.pdf
« Last Edit: 06/09/2017 04:44 pm by jeffreycornish »

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