Ariane 5 ECA's upper stage perigee reduction via passivation manoeuvre

When Ariane 5 ECA development has been decided by Europe to increase Ariane 5 performance, the rule of 25 years in GTO orbit for the upper stage has been anticipated. This was 14 years ago and this rule was known to be satisfied with a perigee lower than 250 km. Even when lowering slightly Ariane 5 ECA performance, this maximum perigee altitude has been held and the whole Launch System has been developed under CNES responsibility with this GTO perigee. In the meantime, more precise calculations demonstrated that such a GTO perigee was giving for the ESCA a mean lifetime higher than 25 years. So studies are in progress inside CNES to decrease the perigee and re-enter inside the 25 years lifetime domain. This paper presents a CNES study to reduce the orbital lifetime of Ariane 5's upper stage that last in GTO after each commercial mission. Usually the aimed orbit has a perigee altitude of 250 km, an apogee altitude near to the geostationary position and an inclination between 2° and 7°. These conditions make stage's mean lifetime superior to 90 years. The CNES study is to expose the possibility to decrease this lifetime by reducing the perigee altitude of the final upper stage orbit through a passivation process optimised to produce orbit modification. It is shown that taking into account material and functional stage constraints the optimised passivation process is able to decrease the perigee by a few tenths of kilometres.

► Each Ariane 5 ECA flight in GTO is leaving the last launcher's stage as debris.
► Energy still on-board after commercial mission is always passivated.
► Passivation energy could be used to reduce the stage's orbital lifetime.
► CNES system study implies realistic operational constraints of Ariane 5 ECA.
► It shows the possibility to reduce perigee altitude from tenths of kilometres.