The satellite market and its needs are constantly evolving and growing Europe must be able to offer a competitive and reliable European dual mode thruster with sufficient power to perform electric orbit rising and station keeping CHEOPS MEDIUM POWER will deliver this product thus strengthening the position of the European space industry on the worldwide scene A considerable step forward will be made by bringing the different elements of the system ( Thruster Unit, PPG . FMS ) to TRL 677 By delivering a mature system by the end of 2003 CHEOPS MEDIUM POWER will endow Europe with a reliable and competitive product ready for 10D ( in – Orbit Demonstration ). Furthermore, the long-term impact of all developments foreseen by CHEOPS MEDIUM POWER must not be neglected.
Namely the project will study the possibility to use lower-cost alternative fuels, which could in the long term contribute to increasing the European industry competitiveness and market share. Also, by using new technologies, value creation concepts and diagnostic tools.
Ambitions
The ambition of CHEOPS MEDIUM POWER is to introduce the ability to assess qualification ability into a multidisciplinary design optimisation cycle in a way that product configuration can be optimally defined from both an end user value perspective as well as an internal manufacturer’s perspective ( eg , reducing qualification time and cost ), and 2 ) facilitate interactive trade-off and optimisation between product design and qualification strategy alternatives MEDIUM POWER brings capabilities beyond the state of art by suggesting novel i qualification strategies and updates of ECSS standards for example standards regarding Additive Manufacturing or Off – the – shelf items utilisation in space systems.