Trade-off Study and Conceptual Design of Onboard Propulsion System for Korean Lunar Orbiter

Paper number

IAC-09.A3.2INT.4

Author

Dr. Kyun Ho Lee, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea, Republic of

Year

2009

Abstract

After the project Apollo’s first successful human landing on the Moon in 1969, whole lunar exploration programs of the United States have been suspended over 20 years due to enormous financial expense and a rapid decrease of interest in Moon. But since two low cost lunar orbiters, the Clementine and the Lunar Prospector, were launched by US again from mid of 1990s, an interest in Moon revived, and thus the lunar exploration programs have been restarted though related activities were low-key compared to the frantic efforts over the past decades. Recently, several nations progress their own lunar exploration program successfully, such as SMART-1 from ESA, Chinese Chang’E-1, Japanese SELENE-Kaguya, Indian Chandrayaan-1 and finally US lunar reconnaissance orbiter, etc.
Late in the year 2007, the science ministry of Republic of Korea announced that Korea established a new roadmap of the national space development program, and plans to send an orbiter to the Moon by the year 2020. Although Korea is a late starter in the space exploration field, a dozen of commercial and science research satellites have been successfully launched into earth orbit in the past decade. According to the ministry's roadmap, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the national aerospace research institute, will start developing the lunar orbiter and the 300-ton capacity rocket named Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II (KSLV-II) together.
According to this plan, KARI has investigated feasibilities and necessary requirements by surveying a planning study of lunar exploration establishment for last year. As a result, it is recognized that developing an onboard propulsion system of the orbiter will be regarded as one of the most important issues because this will be the first challenge for Korea to make the orbiter arrive correctly to the other planet far from the earth.
The major objective of the present study is to set up a principal guide to utilize a proper type of onboard propulsion system. In order to this, this paper will summarize the mission definitions of Korea lunar orbiter derived from the planning study at first. Next, the mission requirements of heritages of various orbiters will be surveyed and then the trade-off study will investigate their key design specifications. Finally, the results of conceptual design will estimate major requirements such as an expected propellant quantity during mission lifetime, minimum required thrust level for insertion into lunar orbit, and detailed specifications of necessary components with a whole system schematic diagram. 

Abstract document

IAC-09.A3.2INT.4.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-09.A3.2INT.4.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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