Incorporation of secondary payloads onto the Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM)

Abstract

The Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) Project is sponsored by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) as part of the work conducted by the Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) Office. The goal of GPIM is to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of a green propulsion technology based on the monopropellant AF-M315E via flight demonstration. As the Project lead, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (Ball Aerospace) is coordinating contributions from industry, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force to execute the GPIM project. In May 2014, the GPIM Project was authorized to integrate three Air Force Science Experiments Review Board (SERB) secondary payloads onto the GPIM space vehicle: iMESA-R, SWATS and SOS. This paper summarizes the flexibility of the BCP-100 spacecraft and describes the work to accommodate the three Air Force SERB payloads. The GPIM space vehicle consists of a GPPS Module mounted on a BCP-100 bus module with the three SERB payloads mounted to a bus side panel.