Provided herein are various improvements to launch vehicle payload systems, such as employed to launch and deploy secondary payloads into orbit. In one example, a system includes a fairing configured to encase a payload within an envelope of a primary fairing of a launch vehicle, and a mount system configured to adapt a mounting port for the payload to a mounting port associated with the launch vehicle. The system also includes a fairing door configured to be commanded open for deployment of the payload after the primary fairing has open.

An internal interface structure of a nuclear thermal propulsion nuclear reactor including a reactor vessel and a reactor head, including a substantially cylindrical body having a top end, a bottom end, an inner surface, and an outer surface, and an annular flange extending radially-outwardly from the outer surface of the body, wherein the annular flange of the interface structure is mounted between an upper flange of the reactor vessel and a bottom flange of the reactor head.

A thermal management system includes a slurry generator, an injector pump coupled to the slurry generator, a heat exchanger reactor coupled to the injector pump, wherein the heat exchanger reactor is adapted to subject a thermally expendable heat absorption material to a temperature above 60° C. and a pressure below 3 kPa, and wherein the expendable heat absorption material endothermically decomposes into a gaseous by-product. A vapor cycle system is coupled to the heat exchanger reactor and is operatively connected to a thermal load. A thermal energy storage system may be coupled to the vapor cycle system and the thermal load. The thermal energy storage system may isolate the heat exchanger reactor from thermal load transients of the thermal load.

A payload interposer (PIP) board provides an interface for hosting payloads on a space vehicle platform. Payload development may be performed via the PIP board in a manner that “abstracts” the hardware of the space vehicle from the payload developer. The PIP board may include a host side payload interface connector that connects to a space vehicle and a payload side payload interface connector that connects to a payload. Power, CDH, and other space vehicle functionality may thus be provided to the payload from the space vehicle via the PIP board.

A space-based solar power station, a power generating satellite module and/or a method for collecting solar radiation and transmitting power generated using electrical current produced therefrom is provided. Power transmitters can be coordinated as a phased array and the power generated by the phased array is transmitted to one or more power receivers to achieve remote wireless power generation and delivery. In many embodiments, a reference signal is distributed within the space-based solar power station to coordinate the phased array. In several embodiments, determinations of the relative locations of the antennas in the array are utilized to evaluate the phase shift and/or amplitude modulation to apply the reference signal at each power transmitter.

A time average peak value of low frequency magnetic noise or low frequency conductive noise generated from a power supply device which drives a Hall thruster is suppressed without mass of a satellite significantly increased. A pulse width control circuit (22) of a Hall thruster power supply device (10) outputs a spread signal (58) obtained by performing spread spectrum on a pulse signal based on a control signal (54). A voltage output circuit (21) outputs output voltage (52) to a Hall thruster (50) in accordance with the spread signal (58) output by the pulse width control circuit (22).

A power controller includes: a plurality of switching elements provided in one-to-one correspondence with a plurality of power supplies, and each of which switches on or off to switch between supplying and stopping supplying a load with electric power from a corresponding one of the plurality of power supplies; a processing unit which computes an operation amount for adjusting an amount of the electric power supplied to the load; and a signal generator which determines, for each control, a switching-element count indicating a total number of switching elements to be turned on among the plurality of switching elements, and a duty ratio of the switching-element count, based on the operation amount, and generates a drive signal for driving the plurality of switching elements successively, based on the switching-element count and the duty ratio.

Embodiments described herein include a satellite cover panel for covering a satellite, particularly a payload bay of a satellite comprising an energy storage module, at least one energy generating module defining, at least partially, a first outer surface of the satellite cover panel, and a logic board defining, at least partially, a second outer surface of the satellite cover panel, wherein the first outer surface and the second outer surface face away from each other and from the energy storage module.

A generator (100) of the present invention has a heat source (101) containing a radioisotope substance precursor that becomes a radioisotope substance by irradiation with a neutron and a controller (108) that controls the irradiation with the neutron.

A satellite system operates at altitudes between 180 km and 350 km relying on vehicles including an engine to counteract atmospheric drag to maintain near-constant orbit dynamics. The system operates at altitudes that are substantially lower than traditional satellites, reducing size, weight and cost of the vehicles and their constituent subsystems such as optical imagers, radars, and radio links. The system can include a large number of lower cost, mass, and altitude vehicles, enabling revisit times substantially shorter than previous satellite systems. The vehicles spend their orbit at low altitude, high atmospheric density conditions that have heretofore been virtually impossible to consider for stable orbits. Short revisit times at low altitudes enable near-real time imaging at high resolution and low cost. At such altitudes, the system has no impact on space junk issues of traditional LEO orbits, and is self-cleaning in that space junk or disabled craft will de-orbit.