AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGIES
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES EXPERIMENT (ATEX) SPACECRAFT
Description
The ATEX (Advanced Technologies EXperiment) missions of microspacecraft is technically (on a level of a range of sub-systems and preliminary design stage) developed for conducting of a wide spectrum of investigation/research works in LEO, MEO and radiation/van Allen belts of the Earth. The main investigations and experiments are concerned to electric-jet propulsions which are placed on the opposite sides of the spacecraft and have direct power supply from solar panels. Other experiments are linked with researches of devices capacity for work in hard conditions of the radiation belts, its degradation, measurement of electric field near the spacecraft and charged particles analysis, construction materials. The spacecraft is based on the Yuzhnoye’s platform MS-2 bus and intensified protection of main sub-system devices.
Advanced technologies concept has been proposed to investigate the potentialities of small and big satellite injection from LEO to GEO including deep missions over van Allen belts using for launch to LEO the light launch vehicles (DNIEPR, ROCKOT, MINOTAVRE, etc.). The approach will allow to reduce cost for the launches to high orbits of satellites and spacecrafts.
Innovative Aspect and Main Advantages
The ATEX MicroSpacecraft is designed for conducting of investigations with two micro Stationary Plasma Propulsions (SPP) of class SPP-20. The main investigations will be conducting in:
-  studies of dynamic and resource potentialities of the SPPs in direct power supply (without usage of batteries) from the spacecraft photo-elements of solar panels in LEO, MEO and van Allen belts. The investigations will assist to many scientists to learn the potentialities of the SPPs, advanced materials for spacecraft design and types of devices protection;
-  taking into account increasing of interest to deep space and Lunar missions, it will be useful to reduce the cost of the spacecraft launches using light space launch vehicles and its services for injection to LEO and then by EJP to the targets;
-  strong interest to the experiments into radiation areas of the Earth: electric field and plasma analysis near a spacecraft, level of degradation of solar batteries in the areas, measurements of ultraviolet rays and charged particles.
The ATEX Conceptual Project and Mission Analysis of the spacecraft were developed with participation of International Team: Zhukovskiy Kharkiv National Aerospace University (ZhKhNU “KhAI”), Yuzhnoye SDO and CNRS (France).
Areas of Application
ATEX mission results will have wide applications in several industrial aerospace: /
Fig.1 General view of ATEX spacecraft
Sectors:
•  Spacecraft propulsion design
•  On-board instrumentation
•  Construction materials
•  Radiation protecting materials
•  Differential communication lines
•  High voltage solar cells
Products
•  Micro SPPs
•  Heat-pipes tools
•  Spectrometers
•  Sensors
•  Communication devices
•  Solar cells
•  Spacecraft control equipment
•  Honeycomb panels
Stage of Development
The SPPs, Xenon tanks, spectrometers, necessary SPP experiment software, platform design are developed, tested and can be used for engineering and flight models of ATEX.
Contact Details
Protsan Yulian
Yuzhnoye State Design Office
3, Krivorozhskaya str., Dniepropetrovsk, 49008, Ukraine
Telephone: 38 (0562) 92 51 53
Fax: 38 (056) 770 01 25
Email:
Website: www.yuzhnoye.com
STCU Senior Specialist:
Elena Taberko [
STCUTechnology Reference: TPFe 224_03