1992 Eurospace Powersat FInal Report

These power conditioning equipments are currently under development as part of the IPS programme and are three times more efficient per gramme than other competitive systems available today. However, none have yet been exposed to the space environment. The Powersat demonstrator would, therefore, benefit from the low mass it offers, and the power conditioning equipment would benefit from an early flight opportunity. 5.1.4 . Preliminary Mass Budget A preliminary mass budget for the initial Powersat demonstrator is presented in Figure 5.1-15. All modules are considered to have adequate mass margins at this level of definition. The principal uncertainty governs the feed horns and pointing system used. However, if mass is significantly greater than estimated here, then it would be possible to split the Service Module from the TWTs and feed horns by using a sixth ASAP position. This may also be necessary for volumetric reasons as discussed in 5.1.3. 5.1.5 Programmatics & Schedule A possible work breakdown structure is shown in Figure 5.1-16. One of the important advantages of the ASAP is that it enables a highly modular approach to constructing the demonstrator. Each of five or six modules are effectively independent units serving well-defined functions, thereby avoiding the complexity and cost of building and testing a highly integrated spacecraft. As the performance of most of the components are known, the interfaces should be relatively simple to define. The only exception to this is considered to be the pointing system. The proposed schedule is presented in Figure 5.1-17. Rather more definition work than undertaken in this Eurospace study would be required to understand clearly the technical feasibility of using ASAP and the most suitable

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