Interaction effect analysis of thruster plume on LEO satellite surface using parallel DSMC method
In the present study, the thruster plume interactions on a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite is investigated by predicting undesirable effects incurred by the plume impingement onto the satellite surface such as disturbance force/torque, thermal loading, and chemical species deposition. To predict the behaviors of thruster plume quantitatively, a numerical analysis with a parallel Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method using unstructured three-dimensional meshes is conducted. The interaction between the exhausted plumes from four monopropellant hydrazine thrusters and the satellite components, such as an S-band antenna, a launch vehicle adapter ring and solar arrays, are investigated. The analysis results verify that the exhausted thruster plumes provide the negligible influences of disturbance force/torque and thermal loading on the present LEO satellite configuration when compared with their values of nominal thrust/torque and solar heating. Also, the chemical species deposition of the thruster plume has no serious contamination due to its high surface temperature while only a large amount of H-2 molecules is observed on the S-band antenna cone. From this study, the design configuration of the present LEO satellite is verified sufficiently by the numerical simulation of the plume interaction effects. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
thruster plume low earth orbit (leo) satellite parallel direct simulation monte carlo (dsmc)