Method of providing energy resources to a circumlunar satellite for passing longduration shadow zones

Abstract

Researches of the possibilities of creating a lunar navigation and communication system have revealed features of the sun's illumination of near-lunar orbits: the annual passage of orbits through a long cycle of about 55 days, containing shadow sections of the orbit from the Moon and a pause of up to 185 days with possible overlays of penumbra and shadow sections of the orbit from the Earth. At the same time, the penumbra and shadow zones from the Earth near the Moon have significant differences in size and can cover the entire orbital grouping of the lunar navigation and communication system. As a result, the problem arises of calculating the energy resources of a circumlunar satellite for passing long-duration shadow zones and maintaining the spacecraft's thermal regime for the period of passing the shadow section of the orbit from the Earth. The energy balance of the spacecraft is modeled for various modes of its operation during the passage of long-duration shadow zones: regular, duty, storage. It is proposed to use blinds to regulate the heat radiation from the spacecraft radiators when passing the shadow sections of the orbit in the considered modes. To reduce the cost of spacecraft mass it is recommended to switch the spacecraft to storage mode, which reduces power consumption in comparison with standby mode. The efficiency of the proposed scheme for passing the shadow zones of the lunar navigation and communication system spacecraft was evaluated for three spacecraft sizes according to the criterion – the minimum amount of mass spent on increasing the energy intensity of the battery and installing blinds.

Keywords

• near-lunar spacecraft
• orbit
• shadow section from the moon
• shadow section from the earth
• energy intensity
• battery
• blinds