THE ELECTRICAL POWER SYSTEM OF THE SMALL SATELLITE CHAMP

摘要

This paper describes the design and presents flight data of the electrical power system for the German small satellite mission CHAMP which was injected into its orbit by a COSMOS launch vehicle from Plesetsk, Russia on 15th July 2000. The abbreviation CHAMP stands for 'A Challenging Minisatellite Pay-load for Geophysical Research and Application'. CHAMP is the first satellite which was built following the Flexbus approach, a concept specifically developed by ASTRIUM GmbH in the mid-90's to satisfy the world-wide demand for "faster, better, cheaper" access to space. The power system selected is based on the direct energy transfer principle with a single 16Ahr, 10 Common Pressure Vessel (CPV) NiH2 battery. The four body mounted solar generator panels are populated with Silicon 200 micron solar cells. The Power Control and Distribution Unit controls the power flow from the solar generator to the battery and distributes power on command from the onboard data handling to the instruments, the heaters and the propulsion system. This paper describes the design of the power subsystem and presents actual flight data.