Analysis of the effectiveness of combining high-and low-thrust engines in Earth – Mars flights
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17721/1812-5409.2025/2.22Keywords:
Earth – Mars interplanetary flight, combination of high and low thrust, nuclear engine, transporting trajectory methodAbstract
Interplanetary manned flights require rapid and economical implementation. These requirements can be met by combining high-thrust and low-thrust engines, which can provide the necessary power and energy efficiency. The problem of a "sprint" flight from Earth to Mars is considered, which consists in transferring a spacecraft from a given circular geocentric orbit to a given circular areocentric orbit in a given time, less than the time of a classic Hohmann-type transfer. The combination of high-thrust and low-thrust engines leads to the problem of optimizing the distribution of the total Δv budget between the high-thrust and low-thrust maneuvers. At the same time, the heliocentric part is formed by the low-thrust engine and differs from the usual Keplerian arc. The high-thrust engine provides maneuvers in the spheres of influence of the planets. Thanks to this, compared to the classic option of using only high thrust, the total maneuver time does not change, and part of the fuel is used by a more efficient low-thrust system. This raises the question: under what conditions will the mass of fuel saved in this way exceed the mass of the additionally installed low-thrust propulsion system? The paper provides an estimate of flight duration, which assesses the upper limit of the flight duration range in which the combination of high- and low-thrust engines is optimal.
Pages of the article in the issue: 142 - 145
Language of the article: Ukrainian
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Copyright (c) 2025 Oleksii Kharytonov, Oleksii Kutsenko, Anastasiia Kutsenko
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