The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 02, 1989
Filed:
Apr. 23, 1987
A Dorian Challoner, Manhattan Beach, CA (US);
Robert L Poeschel, Thousand Oak, CA (US);
Hughes Aircraft Company, Los Angeles, CA (US);
Abstract
An axial electrostatic ion thruster for use on a dual-spin stabilized spacecraft is disclosed. The thruster is mounted on the spun portion of the spacecraft and continuously fired for an integral number of spin periods to provide north-south velocity and attitude control. To achieve zero attitude precession with a statically imbalanced despun platform, or an intentional attitude precession generally, the ion thrust is spin-synchronously varied between two non-zero levels to achieve a prescribed Fourier component amplitude and phase at the spin frequency. Modulation of the thrust is achieved with constant ion beam current by complementary modulation of the beam voltage, V.sub.B, and accel voltage, V.sub.A by varying the ion extraction system grid voltages. This varies the thrust while maintaining a constant total accelerating voltage V.sub.TOT =V.sub.B +.vertline.V.sub.A .vertline..