Controlling HET Radiated Emission on a UHF communication payload in satellite scenarios

The growing adoption of Hall Effect Thruster (HET) for Satellite propulsion system necessitate careful consideration of their impact on on-board communication Payloads performance. This is since the thrust is produced by the ionization of gas and accelerations of these ionized particles through and intensive E-field, with these complex processes generating electromagnetic radiation in a large frequency range, including the UHF Band.This paper shows the approaches followed by TAS-I to control this kind of interference for Narrow-band Communication Satellite (SATCOM) operating in UHF band. An alternative method is reported, based on modeling of a HET noise replica exploiting time domain measurements, then used in an End-toEnd system performance test. The reported activity drives the optimization of the accommodation of the HET with respect to UHF antenna to improve the decoupling of the HET killer from the receiver victim.