Abstract
A momentum flux measuring instrument (MFMI), which ranges from 1 mN∼300 N, is designed to measure the parameters related to the momentum flux of exhaust plume of attitude and orbit control thrusters covered electric and chemical thrusters. A MFMI with the variable-range provides an efficient and economy way to study the exhaust plume of both electric and chemical thrusters. The flexural pivots, replaceable strain gauge, replaceable target plate, and force arm with the variable length make it possible. The designed MFMI with the non-displacement measurement can reduce the influence of pipelines and test lines, especially the elastic force and friction due to displacement. The designed MFMI system with the range of 0∼100 mN and 0∼15 N was calibrated separately. The target indirect measurement method is a simple and economical option for measuring the thrust of electric thrusters, and is employed to measure the thrust of the LIPS-200 ion thruster using the designed MFMI. Research indicates that the sputtering contributes to the momentum transfer of plasma-surface interactions. In addition, the high-speed charged ions from the thruster will experience a charge-exchange (CEX) collision with the slow neutral background. Therefore, the influence of the sputtering and CEX on target indirect measurement method is derived in detail, and then the measured thrust is corrected. The measured average thrust, which is 40.1 mN, demonstrates that the designed MFMI is effective. The designed MFMI can also be employed as a thrust stand by directly mounting the thrusters on torsional arm, and a maximum of three thrusters can be installed on the MFMI at the same time.
Highlights
The study on the exhaust plume plays an important role in the applications of attitude and orbitcontrol engines covered electric and chemical propulsion.[1,2,3] The force or momentum flux generated by the exhaust plume has always been important concerns in the field of exhaust plume
Various momentum flux measuring instruments (MFMI)[4,5,6,7,8,9] have been invented to measure the parameters related to momentum flux of plume, which is conducive to study the characteristics of plume-surface interactions,[10] the force exerted by plume,[6,8,9,11] and the thrust of thrusters using the target indirect measurement method.[5,7,12,13]
A pendulum structure is employed for MFMI, and the pendulum structure consists of target plate and an insulating rod to isolate the sensors from the target plate aCorresponding author
Summary
The high background gas pressure results in larger amounts of charge-exchange (CEX) occurring within the plume.[13,21] The neutral atoms cannot be neglected when calculating the momentum transfer because the energy of neutral atoms generated by CEX is equal to that of charged ions. These high-speed neutral atoms cannot be measured by the Faraday probe.
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