Development and Use of the Galileo and Ulysses Power Sources
Paper presented at the 45th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, October 1994. The Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Ulysses mission to explore the polar regions of the Sun required a new power source: the general-purpose heat source radioisotope thermoelectric generator (GPHS-RTG), the most powerful RTG yet flow. Four flight-qualified GPHS-RTGs were fabricated with one that is being used on Ulysses, two that are being used on Galileo and one that was a common spare (and is now available for the Cassini mission to Saturn). In addition, and Engineering Unit and a Qualification Unit were fabricated to qualify the design for space through rigorous ground tests. This paper summarizes the ground testing and performance predictions showing that the GPHS-RTGs have met and will continue to meet or exceed the performance requirements of the ongoing Galileo and Ulysses missions. There are two copies in the file.
- Research Organization:
- Fairchild Space Company; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Martin Marietta Corporation
- Sponsoring Organization:
- NE Office of Space and Defense Power Systems
- OSTI ID:
- 1033366
- Report Number(s):
- IAF-94-R.1.362; Orbital ID: 8630; Call Number: 18-04
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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