Solar Electric Propulsion Missions
Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) systems achieve very high specific impulse compared to chemical rockets drastically reducing the fuel requirements for in-space transportation. VASIMR® technology is a potential candidate for SEP missions at high power. The electrode-less design of VASIMR® engine enables a long lifetime and competitive performance compared to existing SEP technologies. VASIMR® thruster uses comparably less expensive propellants (argon ~$5/kg and krypton ~$300/kg) than conventional SEP technologies that use expensive xenon gas for propellant (~1000/kg).
The SEP-VASIMR® system could perform the following functions:
- Drag Compensation for Space Stations
- Low Earth Orbit Large Debris Removal
- Human Outpost Servicing at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points & Lunar Cargo
- Deep Space Human Transportation Support
- In-space Resource Recovery
- Catapult Mission for Sending a Probe to Jupiter
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