Electrical COmpetitive PROPUlsion

Project Information

ECOPROPU

Grant agreement ID: 101081987

DOI

10.3030/101081987

EC signature date 19 October 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 30 June 2026

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 2 931 218,75

EU contribution

€ 2 105 815,50

Coordinated by

SAFRAN ELECTRONICS & DEFENSE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ECOPROPU (Electrical COmpetitive PROPUlsion)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ECOPROPU (Electrical COmpetitive PROPUlsion)

Faced with the increasing demands of satellite contractors in terms of costs and mission capabilities, the EU’s space sector must be ready to react as quickly as possible to the needs related to the evolution of space infrastructures and markets to stand out from the competition at global level.

Electric Propulsion (EP), based on Hall-Effect Thruster (HET), is strategic to foster the EU’s space sector competitiveness. Europe needs competitive EP Systems or EPS (combination of a Power Processing Unit (PPU) driving and delivering electrical power to a HET). The PPU has a strong impact on the EPS cost and performances.

Completed in 2021, the H2020 GaNOMIC project demonstrated the feasibility of major disruptive technologies for the PPU. A PPU based on these technologies will open the way to extend drastically the mission field capability and efficiency of EPS, pushing propulsion systems to an unprecedented level of competitiveness, capability, and efficiency.
To achieve these impacts, ECOPROPU, takes over from GaNOMIC and develop five key generic Building Blocks for the PPU which are crucial to unlock the target performances of the EPS: three functions of the PPU (Anode module, Digital processing module, Magnet power converter) and two other Building Blocks on which the Anode module rely (DAB digital controller and Planar transformer). ECOPROPU also prepares and evaluates the HET adaptation to high voltage operation brought by this innovative PPU by better understanding stability and magnet-related phenomena and a complete operation mapping of a large domain thruster.

The impact of this project is to give the consortium industry the capacity by 2025 to develop disruptive and economic PPU and versatile EPS (medium to high power class), allowing to reach a European worldwide leadership in EPS and offer to European space primes and agencies improved performances and cost reduction for their space missions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first period, the ECOPROPU team has organised several workshop to formalise the system needs to be in position to fulfil all sort of new missions. It concluded that the system needs to operate a wide range of voltage and power in order to achieve all sorts of missions.

On the other hand, the team has been working on the technology capabilities and especially exploring the limits of the GaN Transistors used in a space environment. Those components present some limits to work on a high voltage when placed in space.

Having both constraints, operating points and voltage limits on GaN transistors, the team has worked on the PPU architecture and proposed what should be the Anode architecture for the disruptive and economic PPU and versatile EPS. A modular approach has been chosen.

In parallel, a special focus has been done on transferring the sinter lamination technology from a university to space PCB manufacturer. During this phase, several test vehicles has been produced to identify the design rules for this technology. Then the real planar transformer has been produced.

The multiple anode has been produced and are currently under testing.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The performances, and especially the electrical efficiency, observed on the anode are encouraging and should be over the state of the art.