AC8 Supplement Orbital Maneuvers

0653-EX-PL-2014 Text Documents

Aerospace Corporation, THE

2015-01-07ELS_157500

AeroCube-8 (AC8), also known as IMPACT, is a pair of 1.5U CubeSats manifested for launch in May 2015 on an Atlas V launch vehicle. The primary mission of AeroCube-8 is the on-orbit demonstration of a low-thrust, ionic electrospray propulsion system. Given the inherent risks of thrusting objects in space, the following items are hereby acknowledged by Aerospace as part of the mission plan and concept of operations: 1) The two vehicles are neither intended nor planned to execute proximity operations, rendezvous, or docking. For the first several days after deployment, while the spacecraft remain uncontrolled, the spacecraft may remain in close proximity due to the nature of the deployment process from a P-POD, but this situation would be true for any CubeSats deployed from the same P-POD. 2) During nominal operations, the spacecraft will be kept at least on the order of kilometers apart, and most likely tens or hundreds of kilometers. 3) When a thrusting plan is developed, the trajectories (and associated covariances) for each spacecraft propagated out at least two days will be evaluated for potential close approaches. In the event that the spacecraft are predicted to come within 1 km or 5 sigma (<1:100,000) of each other, whichever is larger, the thrusting plan will be re-designed to eliminate the conjunction. 4) Each thrusting plan will also be communicated to the Joint Space Operations Center for a conjunction assessment, to be executed at their discretion. 5) Due to the low level of thrust, anomalous thrusting events are unlikely to create orbit changes that would put either spacecraft in imminent danger.


Document Created: 2015-01-07 14:40:41
Document Modified: 2015-01-07 14:40:41
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