Micro-thrusters for low jitter space observatory precision attitude control. Pointing repeatability and stability jitter requirements for large space telescope missions are difficult to meet with…

NASA's Langley Research Center awarded The Aerospace Corporation a delivery order contract valued at $123,165 on March 15, 2019, to assess the application of micro-thrusters for precision attitude control on space observatory missions. The work focuses on evaluating whether micro-thruster technology can address the pointing stability and jitter requirements that are difficult to achieve with current reaction wheel-based spacecraft architectures. Both cold gas and colloidal micro-thrusters have been successfully demonstrated on previous missions, including the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Pathfinder and European Space Agency platforms, making them candidates for reducing cost and technical risk on future observatory-class missions.

The primary deliverable involves developing higher-fidelity modeling of micro-thruster system performance to enable detailed comparison with traditional attitude control architectures. The contract will augment existing simulations from a prior 2017 feasibility study by incorporating advanced pointing noise models and conducting analysis across multiple mission scenarios. Additionally, the assessment will address previously unexamined risk areas, including thruster lifetime concerns, to establish a comprehensive risk posture for implementation on future space observatories. Work is scheduled for completion by September 30, 2019, and will be performed by The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California under a cost-plus-fixed-fee arrangement with no set-aside designation.

Micro-thrusters for low jitter space observatory precision attitude control. Pointing repeatability and stability jitter requirements for large space telescope missions are difficult to meet with current reaction wheel based architectures. The reaction wheels themselves are typically the largest pointing disturbance on the spacecraft. Micro thrusters have potential for reducing the cost and technical risks of achieving demanding pointing stability performance. Both cold gas and colloidal micro-thrusters were demonstrated on the laser interferometer space antenna lisa pathfinder mission, and cold-gas micro thrusters have also flown on european space agency missions. The objective of this assessment is to assess the benefits of micro-thrusters for application on space observatory missions with comparison to traditional architectures. Higher-fidelity modeling of system performance is the primary focus of this effort; the work will improve modeling fidelity and study architectures. IT will also examine multiple mission applications, using cases, address tradesper the technical recommendations and feedback received on the initial 2017 feasibility study results performed under a separate seets task 80LARC17F0010 . This assessment will also attempt to address micro-thruster risk areas that have not been addressed such as life-time issues to sufficiently formulate a reasonable overall risk posture for use on future observatory-class missions. This assessment will augment the simulation built under a separate seets task 80LARC17F0010 for the 2017 preliminary feasibility study with several types of high-fidelity pointing noise models. The simulation will then utilize the augmented simulation to study pointing stability performance under conditions and situations of interest.