to devise a satellite that was small enough to fit on the newer rockets but would still deliver the capability and power their customers needed. “Why not all-electric?” Peterka mused. The comment was the spark, the beginning of an idea that eventually would become the 702SP (small platform) satellite—the newest 702 model designed by the Boeing satellite businesses and Phantom Works. Electric propulsion was not new. The 702HP uses a hybrid propulsion system—chemical propulsion to get the satellite to the intended orbit after launch, then electric propulsion for 18 Frontiers November 2014 station keeping. Some Russian-made satellites also use hybrid propulsion. But no one had developed an all-electric-propulsion satellite. Boeing would be the first. “It was time to take the training wheels off,” explained Peterka, who today is manager of Boeing’s first 702SP commercial satellite program. Their idea was to re-invent the classic Boeing 601 satellite platform, a smaller predecessor of the 702HP, to fit the new satellite onto smaller rockets. If they could shed the weight of a chemical propulsion system by going all-electric, Peterka said, they could use the lower-cost rockets and
Frontiers November 2014 Issue
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