TY - CHAP A1 - Heuermann, Holger A1 - Harzheim, Thomas A1 - Mühmel, Marc T1 - A maritime harmonic radar search and rescue system using passive and active tags T2 - 2020 17th European Radar Conference (EuRAD) KW - Harmonic Radar KW - Rescue System KW - Frequency Doubler KW - Transponder KW - Tag Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-2-87487-061-3 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/EuRAD48048.2021.00030 N1 - Proceedings of the 17th European Radar Conference, 13th - 15th January 2021, Utrecht, Netherlands SP - 73 EP - 76 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ayed, Anis Haj A1 - Striegan, Constantin J. D. A1 - Kusterer, Karsten A1 - Funke, Harald A1 - Kazari, M. A1 - Horikawa, Atsushi A1 - Okada, Kunio T1 - Automated design space exploration of the hydrogen fueled "Micromix" combustor technology N2 - Combined with the use of renewable energy sources for its production, Hydrogen represents a possible alternative gas turbine fuel for future low emission power generation. Due to its different physical properties compared to other fuels such as natural gas, well established gas turbine combustion systems cannot be directly applied for Dry Low NOx (DLN) Hydrogen combustion. This makes the development of new combustion technologies an essential and challenging task for the future of hydrogen fueled gas turbines. The newly developed and successfully tested “DLN Micromix” combustion technology offers a great potential to burn hydrogen in gas turbines at very low NOx emissions. Aiming to further develop an existing burner design in terms of increased energy density, a redesign is required in order to stabilise the flames at higher mass flows and to maintain low emission levels. For this purpose, a systematic design exploration has been carried out with the support of CFD and optimisation tools to identify the interactions of geometrical and design parameters on the combustor performance. Aerodynamic effects as well as flame and emission formation are observed and understood time- and cost-efficiently. Correlations between single geometric values, the pressure drop of the burner and NOx production have been identified as a result. This numeric methodology helps to reduce the effort of manufacturing and testing to few designs for single validation campaigns, in order to confirm the flame stability and NOx emissions in a wider operating condition field. Y1 - 2017 N1 - Proceedings of the 1st Global Power and Propulsion Forum GPPF 2017, Jan 16-18, 2017, Zurich, Switzerland SP - 1 EP - 8 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Funke, Harald A1 - Beckmann, Nils A1 - Keinz, Jan A1 - Horikawa, Atsushi T1 - 30 years of dry low NOx micromix combustor research for hydrogen-rich fuels: an overview of past and present activities T2 - Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo 2020: Turbomachinery Technical Conference and Exposition, September 21–25, 2020, Virtual, Online. Vol.: 4B: Combustion, Fuels, and Emissions KW - Micromix KW - Hydrogen KW - Fuel-flexibility KW - NOx KW - Emissions Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-0-7918-8413-3 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/GT2020-16328 N1 - Paper No. GT2020-16328, V04BT04A069 PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schulte, Maximilian A1 - Eggert, Mathias T1 - Predicting hourly bitcoin prices based on long short-term memory neural networks T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2021 N2 - Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and is considered a high-risk asset class whose price changes are difficult to predict. Current research focusses on daily price movements with a limited number of predictors. The paper at hand aims at identifying measurable indicators for Bitcoin price movement s and the development of a suitable forecasting model for hourly changes. The paper provides three research contributions. First, a set of significant indicators for predicting the Bitcoin price is identified. Second, the results of a trained Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) neural network that predicts price changes on an hourly basis is presented and compared with other algorithms. Third, the results foster discussions of the applicability of neural nets for stock price predictions. In total, 47 input features for a period of over 10 months could be retrieved to train a neural net that predicts the Bitcoin price movements with an error rate of 3.52 %. Y1 - 2021 N1 - 16th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, March 2021, Essen, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bergmann, Kevin A1 - Gräbener, Josefine A1 - Wild, Dominik A1 - Ulfers, H. A1 - Czupalla, Markus T1 - Study on thermal stabilization of a GEO-stationary telescope baffling system by integral application of phase change material T2 - International Conference on Environmental Systems N2 - The utilization of phase change material (PCM) for latent heat storage and thermal control of spacecraft has been demonstrated in the past in few missions only. One limiting factor was the fact that all concepts developed so far envisioned the PCM to be applied as an additional capacitor, encapsulated in its own housing, leading to mass, efficiency and accommodation challenges. Recently, the application of PCM within the scan cavity of a GEOS type satellite has been suggested, in order to tackle thermal issues due to direct sun intrusion (Choi, M., 2014). However, the application of PCM in such complex mechanical structures is extremely challenging. A new concept to tackle this issue is currently under development at the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences. The concept "Infused Thermal Solutions (ITS)" is based on the idea to 3D print metallic structures in their regular functional shape, but double walled with internal lattice support structures, allowing the infusion of a PCM layer directly into the voids and eliminating the need for additional parts and interfaces. Together with OHB System, FH Aachen theoretically studied the application of this technology to the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Infra-Red Sounder (IRS) instrument. The study focuses on the scan cavity and entrance baffling assembly (EBA) of the IRS. It consists of thermal analyses, 3D-redesign and bread boarding of a scaled and PCM infused EBA version. In the thermal design of the alternative EBA, PCM was applied directly into the EBA, simulating the worst hot case sun intrusion of the mission. By applying 4kg of PCM (to a 60kg baffle) the EBA temperature excursions during sun intrusion were limited from 140K to 30K, leading to a significant thermo-opto-elastic performance gain. This paper introduces the ITS concept development status. Y1 - 2019 N1 - 49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 7-11 July 2019, Boston, Massachusetts ; ICES-2019-72 SP - 1 EP - 14 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Sattler, Johannes, Christoph A1 - Caminos, Ricardo Alexander Chico A1 - Ürlings, Nicolas A1 - Dutta, Siddharth A1 - Ruiz, Victor A1 - Kalogirou, Soteris A1 - Ktistis, Panayiotis A1 - Agathokleous, Rafaela A1 - Jung, Christian A1 - Alexopoulos, Spiros A1 - Atti, Vikrama Nagababu A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Herrmann, Ulf T1 - Operational experience and behaviour of a parabolic trough collector system with concrete thermal energy storage for process steam generation in Cyprus T2 - AIP Conference Proceedings Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0029278 IS - 2303 SP - 140004-1 EP - 140004-10 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Rendon, Carlos A1 - Schwager, Christian A1 - Ghiasi, Mona A1 - Schmitz, Pascal A1 - Bohang, Fakhri A1 - Caminos, Ricardo Alexander Chico A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Herrmann, Ulf T1 - Modeling and upscaling of a pilot bayonettube reactor for indirect solar mixed methane reforming T2 - AIP Conference Proceedings Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0029974 IS - 2303 SP - 170012-1 EP - 170012-9 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Adams, Moritz A1 - Losekamm, Martin J. A1 - Czupalla, Markus T1 - Development of the Thermal Control System for the RadMap Telescope Experiment on the International Space Station T2 - International Conference on Environmental Systems Y1 - 2020 N1 - The proceedings for the 2020 International Conference on Environmental Systems, ICES-2020-179 SP - 1 EP - 10 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Thoma, Andreas A1 - Fisher, Alex A1 - Bertrand, Olivier A1 - Braun, Carsten ED - Vouloutsi, Vasiliki ED - Mura, Anna ED - Tauber, Falk ED - Speck, Thomas ED - Prescott, Tony J. ED - Verschure, Paul F. M. J. T1 - Evaluation of possible flight strategies for close object evasion from bumblebee experiments T2 - Living Machines 2020: Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems KW - Obstacle avoidance KW - Bumblebees KW - Flight control KW - UAV KW - MAV Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-64312-6 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64313-3_34 N1 - 9th International Conference, Living Machines 2020, Freiburg, Germany, July 28–30, 2020, Proceedings SP - 354 EP - 365 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz T1 - Flight times to the heliopause using a combination of solar and radioisotope electric propulsion T2 - 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference N2 - We investigate the interplanetary flight of a low-thrust space probe to the heliopause,located at a distance of about 200 AU from the Sun. Our goal was to reach this distance within the 25 years postulated by ESA for such a mission (which is less ambitious than the 15-year goal set by NASA). Contrary to solar sail concepts and combinations of allistic and electrically propelled flight legs, we have investigated whether the set flight time limit could also be kept with a combination of solar-electric propulsion and a second, RTG-powered upper stage. The used ion engine type was the RIT-22 for the first stage and the RIT-10 for the second stage. Trajectory optimization was carried out with the low-thrust optimization program InTrance, which implements the method of Evolutionary Neurocontrol,using Artificial Neural Networks for spacecraft steering and Evolutionary Algorithms to optimize the Neural Networks’ parameter set. Based on a parameter space study, in which the number of thrust units, the unit’s specific impulse, and the relative size of the solar power generator were varied, we have chosen one configuration as reference. The transfer time of this reference configuration was 29.6 years and the fastest one, which is technically more challenging, still required 28.3 years. As all flight times of this parameter study were longer than 25 years, we further shortened the transfer time by applying a launcher-provided hyperbolic excess energy up to 49 km2/s2. The resulting minimal flight time for the reference configuration was then 27.8 years. The following, more precise optimization to a launch with the European Ariane 5 ECA rocket reduced the transfer time to 27.5 years. This is the fastest mission design of our study that is flexible enough to allow a launch every year. The inclusion of a fly-by at Jupiter finally resulted in a flight time of 23.8 years,which is below the set transfer-time limit. However, compared to the 27.5-year transfer,this mission design has a significantly reduced launch window and mission flexibility if the escape direction is restricted to the heliosphere’s “nose". KW - low-thrust trajectory optimization KW - heliosphere KW - ion propulsion Y1 - 2011 N1 - IEPC-2011-051 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference,September 11–15, 2011 Wiesbaden, Germany SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schmidt, Thomas A1 - Kasch, Susanne A1 - Eichler, Fabian A1 - Thurn, Laura T1 - Process strategies on laser-based melting of glass powder T2 - Lasers in Manufacturing Conference 2021 N2 - This paper presents the laser-based powder bed fusion (L-PBF) using various glass powders (borosilicate and quartz glass). Compared to metals, these require adapted process strategies. First, the glass powders were characterized with regard to their material properties and their processability in the powder bed. This was followed by investigations of the melting behavior of the glass powders with different laser wavelengths (10.6 µm, 1070 nm). In particular, the experimental setup of a CO2 laser was adapted for the processing of glass powder. An experimental setup with integrated coaxial temperature measurement/control and an inductively heatable build platform was created. This allowed the L-PBF process to be carried out at the transformation temperature of the glasses. Furthermore, the component’s material quality was analyzed on three-dimensional test specimen with regard to porosity, roughness, density and geometrical accuracy in order to evaluate the developed L-PBF parameters and to open up possible applications. KW - 3D-printing KW - glass KW - additive manufactureing KW - laser based powder fusion Y1 - 2021 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borggräfe, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Mission performance evaluation for solar sails using a refined SRP force model with variable optical coefficients T2 - 2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing N2 - Solar sails provide ignificant advantages over other low-thrust propulsion systems because they produce thrust by the momentum exchange from solar radiation pressure (SRP) and thus do not consume any propellant.The force exerted on a very thin sail foil basically depends on the light incidence angle. Several analytical SRP force models that describe the SRP force acting on the sail have been established since the 1970s. All the widely used models use constant optical force coefficients of the reflecting sail material. In 2006,MENGALI et al. proposed a refined SRP force model that takes into account the dependancy of the force coefficients on the light incident angle,the sail’s distance from the sun (and thus the sail emperature) and the surface roughness of the sail material [1]. In this paper, the refined SRP force model is compared to the previous ones in order to identify the potential impact of the new model on the predicted capabilities of solar sails in performing low-cost interplanetary space missions. All force models have been implemented within InTrance, a global low-thrust trajectory optimization software utilizing evolutionary neurocontrol [2]. Two interplanetary rendezvous missions, to Mercury and the near-Earth asteroid 1996FG3, are investigated. Two solar sail performances in terms of characteristic acceleration are examined for both scenarios, 0.2 mm/s2 and 0.5 mm/s2, termed “low” and “medium” sail performance. In case of the refined SRP model, three different values of surface roughness are chosen, h = 0 nm, 10 nm and 25 nm. The results show that the refined SRP force model yields shorter transfer times than the standard model. Y1 - 2010 N1 - 2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing, ISSS 2010, 2010-07-20 - 2010-07-22. New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York, USA SP - 1 EP - 6 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kroniger, Daniel A1 - Horikawa, Atsushi A1 - Funke, Harald A1 - Pfäffle, Franziska A1 - Kishimoto, Tsuyoshi A1 - Okada, Koichi T1 - Experimental and numerical investigation on the effect of pressure on micromix hydrogen combustion T2 - ASME Turbo Expo 2021: Turbomachinery Technical Conference and Exposition // Volume 3A: Combustion, Fuels, and Emissions N2 - The micromix (MMX) combustion concept is a DLN gas turbine combustion technology designed for high hydrogen content fuels. Multiple non-premixed miniaturized flames based on jet in cross-flow (JICF) are inherently safe against flashback and ensure a stable operation in various operative conditions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of pressure on the micromix flame with focus on the flame initiation point and the NOx emissions. A numerical model based on a steady RANS approach and the Complex Chemistry model with relevant reactions of the GRI 3.0 mechanism is used to predict the reactive flow and NOx emissions at various pressure conditions. Regarding the turbulence-chemical interaction, the Laminar Flame Concept (LFC) and the Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) are compared. The numerical results are validated against experimental results that have been acquired at a high pressure test facility for industrial can-type gas turbine combustors with regard to flame initiation and NOx emissions. The numerical approach is adequate to predict the flame initiation point and NOx emission trends. Interestingly, the flame shifts its initiation point during the pressure increase in upstream direction, whereby the flame attachment shifts from anchoring behind a downstream located bluff body towards anchoring directly at the hydrogen jet. The LFC predicts this change and the NOx emissions more accurately than the EDC. The resulting NOx correlation regarding the pressure is similar to a non-premixed type combustion configuration. KW - NOx emissions KW - hydrogen KW - combustor KW - gas turbine Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/GT2021-58926 N1 - ASME Turbo Expo 2021: Turbomachinery Technical Conference and Exposition. June 7–11, 2021. Virtual, Online. Paper No: GT2021-58926, V03AT04A025 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Handschuh, Nils A1 - Stollenwerk, Dominik A1 - Borchert, Jörg T1 - Operation of thermal storage power plants under high renewable grid penetration T2 - NEIS 2021: Conference on Sustainable Energy Supply and Energy Storage Systems N2 - The planned coal phase-out in Germany by 2038 will lead to the dismantling of power plants with a total capacity of approx. 30 GW. A possible further use of these assets is the conversion of the power plants to thermal storage power plants; the use of these power plants on the day-ahead market is considerably limited by their technical parameters. In this paper, the influence of the technical boundary conditions on the operating times of these storage facilities is presented. For this purpose, the storage power plants were described as an MILP problem and two price curves, one from 2015 with a relatively low renewable penetration (33 %) and one from 2020 with a high renewable energy penetration (51 %) are compared. The operating times were examined as a function of the technical parameters and the critical influencing factors were investigated. The thermal storage power plant operation duration and the energy shifted with the price curve of 2020 increases by more than 25 % compared to 2015. KW - storage optimisation KW - storage dispatch KW - thermal storage Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-3-8007-5651-3 N1 - NEIS 2021: Conference on Sustainable Energy Supply and Energy Storage Systems. 13-14 September 2021. Hamburg, Germany SP - 261 EP - 265 PB - VDE Verlag CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Kahle, Ralph A1 - Wie, Bong T1 - Head-on impact deflection of NEAs: a case study for 99942 Apophis T2 - Planetary Defense Conference 2007 N2 - Near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 99942 Apophis provides a typical example for the evolution of asteroid orbits that lead to Earth-impacts after a close Earth-encounter that results in a resonant return. Apophis will have a close Earth-encounter in 2029 with potential very close subsequent Earth-encounters (or even an impact) in 2036 or later, depending on whether it passes through one of several less than 1 km-sized gravitational keyholes during its 2029-encounter. A pre-2029 kinetic impact is a very favorable option to nudge the asteroid out of a keyhole. The highest impact velocity and thus deflection can be achieved from a trajectory that is retrograde to Apophis orbit. With a chemical or electric propulsion system, however, many gravity assists and thus a long time is required to achieve this. We show in this paper that the solar sail might be the better propulsion system for such a mission: a solar sail Kinetic Energy Impactor (KEI) spacecraft could impact Apophis from a retrograde trajectory with a very high relative velocity (75-80 km/s) during one of its perihelion passages. The spacecraft consists of a 160 m × 160 m, 168 kg solar sail assembly and a 150 kg impactor. Although conventional spacecraft can also achieve the required minimum deflection of 1 km for this approx. 320 m-sized object from a prograde trajectory, our solar sail KEI concept also allows the deflection of larger objects. For a launch in 2020, we also show that, even after Apophis has flown through one of the gravitational keyholes in 2029, the solar sail KEI concept is still feasible to prevent Apophis from impacting the Earth, but many KEIs would be required for consecutive impacts to increase the total Earth-miss distance to a safe value Y1 - 2007 N1 - Planetary Defense Conference 2007, Wahington D.C., USA, 05-08 March 2007 SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grundmann, Jan Thimo A1 - Boden, Ralf A1 - Ceriotti, Matteo A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Dumont, Etienne A1 - Grimm, Christian D. A1 - Lange, Caroline A1 - Lichtenheldt, Roy A1 - Pelivan, Ivanka A1 - Peloni, Alessandro A1 - Riemann, Johannes A1 - Spröwitz, Tom A1 - Tardivel, Simon T1 - Soil to sail-asteroid landers on near-term sailcraft as an evolution of the GOSSAMER small spacecraft solar sail concept for in-situ characterization T2 - 5th IAA Planetary Defense Conference KW - multiple NEA rendezvous KW - solar sail KW - GOSSAMER-1 KW - MASCOT KW - asteroid sample return Y1 - 2017 N1 - 5th IAA Planetary Defense Conference – PDC 2017 15-19 May 2017, Tokyo, Japan ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Solar sails for near-term advanced scientific deep space missions T2 - Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Combustion and Propulsion N2 - Solar sails are propelled in space by reflecting solar photons off large mirroring surfaces, thereby transforming the momentum of the photons into a propulsive force. This innovative concept for low-thrust space propulsion works without any propellant and thus provides a wide range of opportunities for highenergy low-cost missions. Offering an efficient way of propulsion, solar sailcraft could close a gap in transportation options for highly demanding exploration missions within our solar system and even beyond. On December 17th, 1999, a significant step was made towards the realization of this technology: a lightweight solar sail structure with an area of 20 m × 20 m was successfully deployed on ground in a large facility at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at Cologne. The deployment from a package of 60 cm × 60 cm × 65 cm with a total mass of less than 35 kg was achieved using four extremely light-weight carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) booms with a specific mass of 100 g/m. The paper briefly reviews the basic principles of solar sails as well as the technical concept and its realization in the ground demonstration experiment, performed in close cooperation between DLR and ESA. Next possible steps are outlined. They could comprise the in-orbit demonstration of the sail deployment on the upper stage of a low-cost rocket and the verification of the propulsion concept by an autonomous and free flying solar sail in the frame of a scientific mission. It is expected that the present design could be extended to sail sizes of about (40 m)2 up to even (70 m)2 without significant mass penalty. With these areas, the maximum achievable thrust at 1 AU would range between 10 and 40 mN – comparable to some electric thrusters. Such prototype sails with a mass between 50 and 150 kg plus a micro-spacecraft of 50 to 250 kg would have a maximum acceleration in the order of 0.1 mm/s2 at 1 AU, corresponding to a maximum ∆V-capability of about 3 km/s per year. Two near/medium-term mission examples to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) will be discussed: a rendezvous mission and a sample return mission. KW - solar sail KW - low-thrust KW - near-Earth asteroid KW - sample return KW - solar system Y1 - 2003 N1 - Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Combustion and Propulsion. Pozzuoli, Italy, 16 - 21 June 2002. ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Häusler, Bernd T1 - Performance requirements for near-term interplanetary solar sailcraft missions T2 - 6th International AAAF Symposium on Space Propulsion: Propulsion for Space Transportation of the XXIst Century N2 - Solar sailcraft provide a wide range of opportunities for high-energy low-cost missions. To date, most mission studies require a rather demanding performance that will not be realized by solar sailcraft of the first generation. However, even with solar sailcraft of moderate performance, scientifically relevant missions are feasible. This is demonstrated with a Near Earth Asteroid sample return mission and various planetary rendezvous missions. Y1 - 2002 N1 - 6th International AAAF Symposium on Space Propulsion: Propulsion for Space Transportation of the XXIst Century, Versailles, France, 14-16 May 2002 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz A1 - Loeb, H. W. A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas T1 - Perspectives of electric propulsion for outer planetary and deep space missions T2 - European Planetary Science Congress 2009 N2 - Solar-electric propulsion (SEP) is superior with respect to payload capacity, flight time and flexible launch window to the conventional interplanetary transfer method using chemical propulsion combined with gravity assists. This fact results from the large exhaust velocities of electric low–thrust propulsion and is favourable also for missions to the giant planets, Kuiper-belt objects and even for a heliopause probe (IHP) as shown in three studies by the authors funded by DLR. They dealt with a lander for Europa and a sample return mission from a mainbelt asteroid [1], with the TANDEM mission [2]; the third recent one investigates electric propulsion for the transfer to the edge of the solar system. All studies are based on triple-junction solar arrays, on rf-ion thrusters of the qualified RIT-22 type and they use the intelligent trajectory optimization program InTrance [3]. Y1 - 2009 N1 - European Planetary Science Congress 2009, 13-18 September, Potsdam, Germany SP - 416 EP - 416 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Spurmann, Jörn A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Löb, Horst A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz T1 - Interplanetary trajectory optimization for a sep mission to Saturn T2 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 N2 - The recently proposed NASA and ESA missions to Saturn and Jupiter pose difficult tasks to mission designers because chemical propulsion scenarios are not capable of transferring heavy spacecraft into the outer solar system without the use of gravity assists. Thus our developed mission scenario based on the joint NASA/ESA Titan Saturn System Mission baselines solar electric propulsion to improve mission flexibility and transfer time. For the calculation of near-globally optimal low-thrust trajectories, we have used a method called Evolutionary Neurocontrol, which is implemented in the low-thrust trajectory optimization software InTrance. The studied solar electric propulsion scenario covers trajectory optimization of the interplanetary transfer including variations of the spacecraft's thrust level, the thrust unit's specific impulse and the solar power generator power level. Additionally developed software extensions enabled trajectory optimization with launcher-provided hyperbolic excess energy, a complex solar power generator model and a variable specific impulse ion engine model. For the investigated mission scenario, Evolutionary Neurocontrol yields good optimization results, which also hold valid for the more elaborate spacecraft models. Compared to Cassini/Huygens, the best found solutions have faster transfer times and a higher mission flexibility in general. KW - Spacecraft KW - Reusable Rocket Engines KW - Hybrid Propellants Y1 - 2009 SN - 9781615679089 N1 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 (IAC 2009) Held 12-16 October 2009, Daejeon, Republic of Korea. SP - 5234 EP - 5248 ER -