0,5 hydrazine catalytic engines thrust decay investigation and solution for the telecom spacecrafts
- Paper ID
90-iaf-249
- author
- company
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
- country
France
- year
1990
- abstract
Nearly all the spacecrafts of the OTS family (OTS2, ECS’s, MARECS, TELECOM 1A and B) experienced after a couple of years in orbit a sudden and severe thrust decay of the NSSK thrusters. Investigations and test were conducted by an for the European Space Agency (ESA). A possible failure mode was identified and reproduced on ground. The failure process was associated with the clogging of the catalytic bed by silica coming from the AF 332 bladder. Amounts of silica as small as 20 mg could reduce the thrust to a few percents of the nominal.