Roadmap development of ABEP for EO missions at VLEO
Tutor / Supervisor
Student
Senar Tejedor, Adrian
Document type
Bachelor thesis
Date
2020
rights
Restricted access - author's decision
Publisher
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
UPCommons
Abstract
Air breathing electric propulsion is a fuel free propulsion system that is on development. The research in this field is now mostly carried on by the project discoverer in which some universities take part in. UPC is asked to develop a roadmap study about ABEP development, and this is what is summarized in this document. To carry out this roadmap, two different sections of ABEP have been taken into account, the technological development, in which the actual challenges have been summarized and solutions have been exposed, and the ABEP business ecosystem, which is still undeveloped. The roadmap development consists of different research parts, the first one is the state of the art, where a research about actual ABEP technology and its competitors is carried out. Then, a deeper analysis of ABEP is done by its SWOT analysis, where the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are studied. Once ABEP is completely studied, some actions in different fields are proposed in order to set ABEP as the reference propulsion system in VLEO by 2035. This actions lead to minor objectives that are also set in a reasonable time in order to achieve the final objective. To finish the roadmap, both the actions and the objectives are set into a timeline.
