Integrated Trajectory and Energy Management Simulator for Electric Propulsion Spacecraft

We present a new spacecraft simulator intended to allow a realistic assessment of the behaviour of the main spacecraft subsystems in missions with electric propulsion. Built around a dedicated low thrust trajectory propagator, the simulator takes into account at each time step the exchanges of energy among the different subsystems and the instantaneous power production as a function of orbital position and spacecraft attitude. By such direct simulation approach, the mission designer is able to catch the full interplay of spacecraft dynamics, onboard energy flows and propulsive thrusting.